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Appendix E. Certificates

E.1. Creating SSL/TLS Certificates
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Summary

SSL/TLS certificates provide a layer of security for accessing your installation over HTTPS. This procedure provides instructions for creating certificates and configuring your server with them.

The following procedure requires openssl. To install this tool, run the following command on your server: 
#yum install openssl
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A Certificate Authority (CA) signs certificates to provide verifification of their validity. Web browsers contain a number of CA certificates for verifying HTTPS communication with secure websites. Some of these CAs require a fee to provide a CA pair for your server, while some are open and provide free CA pairs. This procedure describes how to generate your own Certificate Authority (CA) certificate and key for your own internal network usage.

Procedure E.1. Creating a Certificate Authority

  1. Run the following command: 
    #openssl req -new -x509 -keyout ca.key -out ca.crt -days 3650
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    This command requests a new CA pair valid for 3650 days.
  2. Enter a password to protect your CA: 
    Generating a 2048 bit RSA private key
......................................................................................................................................+++
..................................................................................................+++
writing new private key to 'ca.key'
Enter PEM pass phrase:
Verifying - Enter PEM pass phrase:
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  3. Enter the following details about your organization: 
    Country Name (2 letter code) [XX]:AU
State or Province Name (full name) []:Queensland
Locality Name (eg, city) [Default City]:Brisbane
Organization Name (eg, company) [Default Company Ltd]:Red Hat
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Engineering Content Services
Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:www.example.com
Email Address []:dmacpher@redhat.com
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    This information forms the Distinguished Name (DN) in your certificate.
Conclusion

You have created a Certificate Authority. openssl creates two files: ca.key, which is a key that administrators use to sign certificates, and ca.crt, which is the public CA certificate that users obtain to verify the validity of signed certificates they receive. Make sure users accessing your server have a copy of ca.crt so that they can import it into their client's trusted CA store.

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