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Chapter 4. Using SSL to protect connections to Red Hat Quay

4.1. Introduction to using SSL

To configure Red Hat Quay with a self-signed certificate, you need to create a Certificate Authority (CA) and then generate the required key and certificate files.

The following examples assume you have configured the server hostname quay-server.example.com using DNS or another naming mechanism, such as adding an entry in your /etc/hosts file: 

$ cat /etc/hosts
...
192.168.1.112   quay-server.example.com

4.2. Create a Certificate Authority and sign a certificate

At the end of this procedure, you will have a certificate file and a primary key file named ssl.cert and ssl.key, respectively.

4.2.1. Create a Certificate Authority

  1. Generate the root CA key: 

    $ openssl genrsa -out rootCA.key 2048

  2. Generate the root CA cert: 

    $ openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key rootCA.key -sha256 -days 1024 -out rootCA.pem

  3. Enter the information that will be incorporated into your certificate request, including the server hostname, for example: 

    Country Name (2 letter code) [XX]:IE
State or Province Name (full name) []:GALWAY
Locality Name (eg, city) [Default City]:GALWAY
Organization Name (eg, company) [Default Company Ltd]:QUAY
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:DOCS
Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:quay-server.example.com

4.2.2. Sign a certificate

  1. Generate the server key: 

    $ openssl genrsa -out ssl.key 2048

  2. Generate a signing request: 

    $ openssl req -new -key ssl.key -out ssl.csr

  3. Enter the information that will be incorporated into your certificate request, including the server hostname, for example: 

    Country Name (2 letter code) [XX]:IE
State or Province Name (full name) []:GALWAY
Locality Name (eg, city) [Default City]:GALWAY
Organization Name (eg, company) [Default Company Ltd]:QUAY
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:DOCS
Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:quay-server.example.com

  4. Create a configuration file openssl.cnf, specifying the server hostname, for example:

    openssl.cnf

    [req]
req_extensions = v3_req
distinguished_name = req_distinguished_name
[req_distinguished_name]
[ v3_req ]
basicConstraints = CA:FALSE
keyUsage = nonRepudiation, digitalSignature, keyEncipherment
subjectAltName = @alt_names
[alt_names]
DNS.1 = quay-server.example.com
IP.1 = 192.168.1.112

  5. Use the configuration file to generate the certificate ssl.cert: 

    $ openssl x509 -req -in ssl.csr -CA rootCA.pem -CAkey rootCA.key -CAcreateserial -out ssl.cert -days 356 -extensions v3_req -extfile openssl.cnf

4.3. Configuring SSL using the command line

Another option when configuring SSL is to use the command line interface.

  1. Copy the certificate file and primary key file to your configuration directory, ensuring they are named ssl.cert and ssl.key respectively: 

    $ cp ~/ssl.cert $QUAY/config
$ cp ~/ssl.key $QUAY/config
$ cd $QUAY/config

  2. Edit the config.yaml file and specify that you want Quay to handle TLS:

    config.yaml

    ...
SERVER_HOSTNAME: quay-server.example.com
...
PREFERRED_URL_SCHEME: https
...

  3. Stop the Quay container and restart the registry: 

    $ sudo podman rm -f quay
$ sudo podman run -d --rm -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
  --name=quay \
  -v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
  -v $QUAY/storage:/datastorage:Z \
  registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13

4.4. Configuring SSL using the UI

This section configures SSL using the Quay UI. To configure SSL using the command line interface, see the following section.

  1. Start the Quay container in configuration mode: 

    $ sudo podman run --rm -it --name quay_config -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13 config secret
  2. In the Server Configuration section, select Red Hat Quay handles TLS for TLS. Upload the certificate file and private key file created earlier, ensuring that the Server Hostname matches the value used when creating the certs. Validate and download the updated configuration.

  3. Stop the Quay container and then restart the registry: 

    $ sudo podman rm -f quay
$ sudo podman run -d --rm -p 80:8080 -p 443:8443 \
--name=quay \
-v $QUAY/config:/conf/stack:Z \
-v $QUAY/storage:/datastorage:Z \
registry.redhat.io/quay/quay-rhel8:v3.7.13

4.5. Testing SSL configuration using the command line

  • Use the podman login command to attempt to log in to the Quay registry with SSL enabled: 

    $ sudo podman login quay-server.example.com
Username: quayadmin
Password:

Error: error authenticating creds for "quay-server.example.com": error pinging docker registry quay-server.example.com: Get "https://quay-server.example.com/v2/": x509: certificate signed by unknown authority

  • Podman does not trust self-signed certificates. As a workaround, use the --tls-verify option: 

    $ sudo podman login --tls-verify=false quay-server.example.com
Username: quayadmin
Password:

Login Succeeded!

Configuring Podman to trust the root Certificate Authority (CA) is covered in a subsequent section.

4.6. Testing SSL configuration using the browser

When you attempt to access the Quay registry, in this case, https://quay-server.example.com, the browser warns of the potential risk:

Potential risk

Proceed to the log in screen, and the browser will notify you that the connection is not secure:

Connection not secure

Configuring the system to trust the root Certificate Authority (CA) is covered in the subsequent section.

4.7. Configuring podman to trust the Certificate Authority

Podman uses two paths to locate the CA file, namely, /etc/containers/certs.d/ and /etc/docker/certs.d/.

  • Copy the root CA file to one of these locations, with the exact path determined by the server hostname, and naming the file ca.crt: 

    $ sudo cp rootCA.pem /etc/containers/certs.d/quay-server.example.com/ca.crt

  • Alternatively, if you are using Docker, you can copy the root CA file to the equivalent Docker directory: 

    $ sudo cp rootCA.pem /etc/docker/certs.d/quay-server.example.com/ca.crt

You should no longer need to use the --tls-verify=false option when logging in to the registry: 

$ sudo podman login quay-server.example.com

Username: quayadmin
Password:
Login Succeeded!

4.8. Configuring the system to trust the certificate authority

  1. Copy the root CA file to the consolidated system-wide trust store: 

    $ sudo cp rootCA.pem /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/

  2. Update the system-wide trust store configuration: 

    $ sudo update-ca-trust extract

  3. You can use the trust list command to ensure that the Quay server has been configured: 

    $ trust list | grep quay
    label: quay-server.example.com

    Now, when you browse to the registry at https://quay-server.example.com, the lock icon shows that the connection is secure:

    Connection not secure

  4. To remove the root CA from system-wide trust, delete the file and update the configuration: 

    $ sudo rm /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/rootCA.pem
$ sudo update-ca-trust extract
$ trust list | grep quay
$

More information can be found in the RHEL 8 documentation in the chapter Using shared system certificates.

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