source: postlfs/security/make-ca.xml@ acf7e2c

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
   "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
  <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../../general.ent">
  %general-entities;

  <!ENTITY certhost              "https://hg.mozilla.org/">
  <!ENTITY certpath              "/lib/ckfw/builtins/certdata.txt">
  <!ENTITY make-ca-buildsize     "6.6 MB (with all runtime deps)">
  <!ENTITY make-ca-time          "0.1 SBU (with all runtime deps)">

  <!ENTITY make-ca-download      "https://github.com/djlucas/make-ca/archive/v&make-ca-version;/make-ca-&make-ca-version;.tar.gz">
  <!ENTITY make-ca-size          "36 KB">
  <!ENTITY make-ca-md5sum        "0eeaf712eedeae4fa55d8bfa37f4ca32">
]>

<sect1 id="make-ca" xreflabel="make-ca-&make-ca-version;">
  <?dbhtml filename="make-ca.html"?>

  <sect1info>
    <othername>$LastChangedBy$</othername>
    <date>$Date$</date>
  </sect1info>

  <title>make-ca-&make-ca-version;</title>
  <indexterm zone="make-ca">
    <primary sortas="a-make-ca">make-ca</primary>
  </indexterm>

  <sect2 role="package">
    <title>Introduction to make-ca</title>

    <para>
      Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is a method to validate the authenticity
      of an otherwise unknown entity across untrusted networks. PKI works by
      establishing a chain of trust, rather than trusting each individual host
      or entity explicitly. In order for a certificate presented by a remote
      entity to be trusted, that certificate must present a complete chain of
      certificates that can be validated using the root certificate of a
      Certificate Authority (CA) that is trusted by the local machine.
    </para>
  
    <para>
      Establishing trust with a CA involves validating things like company
      address, ownership, contact information, etc., and ensuring that the CA
      has followed best practices, such as undergoing periodic security audits
      by independent investigators and maintaining an always available
      certificate revocation list. This is well outside the scope of BLFS (as
      it is for most Linux distributions). The certificate store provided here
      is taken from the Mozilla Foundation, who have established very strict
      inclusion policies described <ulink
        url="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/">here</ulink>.
    </para>

  &lfs83_checked;

    <bridgehead renderas="sect3">Package Information</bridgehead>
    <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
      <listitem>
        <para>Download (HTTP): <ulink url="&make-ca-download;"/></para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>Download size: &make-ca-size;</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>Download MD5 Sum: &make-ca-md5sum;</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>Estimated disk space required: &make-ca-buildsize;</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>Estimated build time: &make-ca-time;</para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>

    <bridgehead renderas="sect3">make-ca Dependencies</bridgehead>

    <bridgehead renderas="sect4">Recommended</bridgehead>
    <para role="recommended"><xref linkend="p11-kit"/> (required at runtime to
    generate certificate stores from trust anchors)</para>

   <bridgehead renderas="sect4">Optional (runtime)</bridgehead>
    <para role="optional">
      <ulink role="runtime" url="&blfs-book;general/openjdk.html">OpenJDK</ulink> 
        (to generate a java PKCS#12 store), and 
      <ulink role="runtime" url="&blfs-book;postlfs/nss.html">nss</ulink> 
        (to generate a shared NSSDB)
    </para>

    <para condition="html" role="usernotes">User Notes:
    <ulink url='&blfs-wiki;/make-ca'/></para>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 role="installation">
    <title>Installation of make-ca</title>

    <para>The <application>make-ca</application> script will download and
    process the certificates included in the <filename>certdata.txt</filename>
    file for use as trust anchors for the <xref linkend="p11-kit"/> trust
    module. Additionally, it will generate system certificate stores used by
    BLFS applications (if the recommended and optional applications are present
    on the system). Any local certificates stored in
    <filename>/etc/ssl/local</filename> will be imported to both the trust
    anchors and the generated certificate stores (overriding Mozilla's trust).
    Certificates in this directory should be stored as PEM encoded
    <application>OpenSSL</application> trusted certificates.</para>

    <para>To create an <application>OpenSSL</application> trusted certificate
    from a regular PEM encoded file, you need to add trust arguments to the
    <command>openssl</command> command, and create a new certificate. There are
    three trust types that are recognized by the
    <application>make-ca</application> script, SSL/TLS, S/Mime, and code
    signing. For example, using the
    <ulink url="http://www.cacert.org/">CAcert</ulink> roots, if you want to
    trust both for all three roles, the following commands will create
    appropriate OpenSSL trusted certificates (run as the <systemitem
    class="username">root</systemitem> user):</para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>install -vdm755 /etc/ssl/local &amp;&amp;
wget http://www.cacert.org/certs/root.crt &amp;&amp;
wget http://www.cacert.org/certs/class3.crt &amp;&amp;
openssl x509 -in root.crt -text -fingerprint -setalias "CAcert Class 1 root" \
        -addtrust serverAuth -addtrust emailProtection -addtrust codeSigning \
        > /etc/ssl/local/CAcert_Class_1_root.pem &amp;&amp;
openssl x509 -in class3.crt -text -fingerprint -setalias "CAcert Class 3 root" \
        -addtrust serverAuth -addtrust emailProtection -addtrust codeSigning \
        > /etc/ssl/local/CAcert_Class_3_root.pem</userinput></screen>

    <para>If one of the three trust arguments is omitted, the certificate is
    neither trusted, nor rejected for that role. Clients that use
    <application>OpenSSL</application> or <application>NSS</application>
    encountering this certificate will present a warning to the user. Clients
    using <application>GnuTLS</application> without
    <application>p11-kit</application> support are not aware of trusted
    certificates. To include this CA into the ca-bundle.crt (used for
    <application>GnuTLS</application>), it must have <envar>serverAuth</envar>
    trust. Additionally, to explicitly disallow a certificate for a particular
    use, replace the <parameter>-addtrust</parameter> flag with the
    <parameter>-addreject</parameter> flag.</para> 

    <para>To install the various certificate stores, first install the
    <application>make-ca</application> script into the correct location.
    As the <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem> user:</para>

<screen role="root"><userinput>make install</userinput></screen>

   <para>As the <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem> user, after
   installing <xref linkend="p11-kit"/>, download the certificate source and
   prepare for system use with the following command:</para>

    <note>
      <para>If running the script a second time with the same version of
      <filename>certdata.txt</filename>, for instance, to add additional stores
      as the requisite software is installed, add the <parameter>-r</parameter>
      switch to the command line. If packaging, run <command>make-ca
      --help</command> to see all available command line options.</para>
    </note>

<screen role="root"><userinput>/usr/sbin/make-ca -g</userinput></screen>

    <para>You should periodically update the store with the above command
    either manually, or via a <phrase revision="sysv">cron job.</phrase>
    <phrase revision="systemd">systemd timer. A timer is installed at
    <filename>/etc/systemd/system/update-pki.timer</filename> that, if enabled,
    will check for updates weekly.</phrase></para>

    <para>The default <filename>certdata.txt</filename> file provided by make-ca
    is obtained from the mozilla-release branch, and is modified to provide a
    Mercurial revision. This will be the correct version for most
    systems. There are, however, several other variants of the file available
    for use that might be preferred for one reason or another, including the
    files shipped with Mozilla products in this book. RedHat and OpenSUSE,
    for instance, use the version included in 
    <ulink role="runtime" url="&blfs-book;postlfs/nss.html">nss</ulink>. Additional
    upstream downloads are available at the links below.</para>

    <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
      <listitem>
        <para>Mozilla Release (the version provided by BLFS):
        <ulink url="&certhost;releases/mozilla-release/raw-file/default/security/nss&certpath;"/>
        </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>NSS (this is the latest available version):
        <ulink url="&certhost;projects/nss/raw-file/tip&certpath;"/>
        </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>Mozilla Central:
        <ulink url="&certhost;mozilla-central/raw-file/default/security/nss&certpath;"/>
        </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>Mozilla Beta:
        <ulink url="&certhost;releases/mozilla-beta/raw-file/default/security/nss&certpath;"/>
        </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>Mozilla Aurora:
        <ulink url="&certhost;releases/mozilla-aurora/raw-file/default/security/nss&certpath;"/>
        </para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 role="content">
    <title>Contents</title>

    <segmentedlist>
      <segtitle>Installed Programs</segtitle>
      <segtitle>Installed Libraries</segtitle>
      <segtitle>Installed Directories</segtitle>

      <seglistitem>
        <seg>make-ca</seg>
        <seg>None</seg>
        <seg>/etc/ssl/{certs,java,local} and /etc/pki/{nssdb,anchors}</seg>
      </seglistitem>
    </segmentedlist>

   <variablelist>
      <bridgehead renderas="sect3">Short Descriptions</bridgehead>
      <?dbfo list-presentation="list"?>
      <?dbhtml list-presentation="table"?>

      <varlistentry id="make-ca-bin">
        <term><command>make-ca</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>is a shell script that adapts a current version of
          <filename>certdata.txt</filename>, and prepares it for use
          as the system trust store.</para>
          <indexterm zone="make-ca make-ca">
            <primary sortas="b-make-ca">make-ca</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>
   </variablelist>

  </sect2>
</sect1>