«Producir y nutrir,
producir y no poseer,
obrar y no retener,
acrecentar y no regir,
son el misterio de la vida.»

Lao Tse hablando de procomunes en el siglo VI ac.

Updating CAcert.org X.509 certificates for CentOS

2014-01-15 00:00:00 +0100

My SSL/TLS certificate has expired so I need to request a new one and I'm summing here all the process.

As my current configuration is more or less a mess, I'm starting from the very begining but I assume you are registered at CAcert.org and you are able to request server certificates for your verified domains. I'll use my tormento.olea.org server as the hostname example.

The better way to me is to use CAcert.org key and CSR creation script (which uses openssl), specially needed when you want to add several domains to the certificate.

# sh csr
Private Key and Certificate Signing Request Generator
This script was designed to suit the request format needed by
the CAcert Certificate Authority. www.CAcert.org

Short Hostname (ie. imap big_srv www2): tormento
FQDN/CommonName (ie. www.example.com) : tormento.olea.org
Type SubjectAltNames for the certificate, one per line. Enter a blank line to finish
SubjectAltName: DNS:olea.org
SubjectAltName: DNS:www.olea.org
SubjectAltName: DNS:olea.es
SubjectAltName: DNS:www.olea.es
SubjectAltName: DNS:ismael.olea.org
SubjectAltName: DNS:
Running OpenSSL...
Generating a 2048 bit RSA private key
.............+++
................................................................................................+++
writing new private key to '/root/tormento_privatekey.pem'
-----
Copy the following Certificate Request and paste into CAcert website to obtain a Certificate.
When you receive your certificate, you 'should' name it something like tormento_server.pem

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
-----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----

The Certificate request is also available in /root/tormento_csr.pem
The Private Key is stored in /root/tormento_privatekey.pem

Note: I found the genkey tool (from the crypto-utils package) takes a lot of more time to generate a same key lenght. Probably due to some kind design goal. I think you could use genkey to generate the key and the csr script for the multi-dns CSR request.

Then I move files to correct systems places:

mv /root/tormento_csr.pem /etc/pki/tls/certs/tormento.olea.org.0.csr.pem
mv /root/tormento_privatekey.pem /etc/pki/tls/private/tormento.olea.org.key.pem

Then I ask for a certification at CAcert website. CAcert recomends to select a Class 3 root certificate.

Cut and paste the certificate from the browser into the system:

# cat > /etc/pki/tls/certs/tormento.olea.org.crt.pem

You can check the certificate is correct using openssl. And you'll receive an email from CAcert reporting about the new certificate.

Then you can configure your applications to use the new crypto key and certificate.

applications:

These are the applications I've configured for my needs. You have other configuration examples at CAcert website.

postfix

# grep tls /etc/postfix/main.cf

smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/pki/tls/private/tormento.olea.org.key.pem
smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/pki/tls/certs/tormento.olea.org.crt.pem
smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/pki/tls/certs/CAcert_chain.pem
smtp_use_tls = yes
smtp_tls_key_file = /etc/pki/tls/private/tormento.olea.org.key.pem
smtp_tls_cert_file = /etc/pki/tls/certs/tormento.olea.org.crt.pem
smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/pki/tls/certs/CAcert_chain.pem

ejabberd

Create a key + certificate file:

# cat /etc/pki/tls/private/tormento.olea.org.key.pem > /etc/pki/ejabberd/certs/ejabberd.pem
# cat /etc/pki/tls/certs/tormento.olea.org.crt.pem >> /etc/pki/ejabberd/certs/ejabberd.pem
# chown -R ejabberd.ejabberd /etc/pki/ejabberd/
# chmod a-rw,u+r -R /etc/pki/ejabberd/

dovecot

# cp /etc/pki/tls/private/tormento.olea.org.key.pem /etc/pki/dovecot/private/dovecot.pem
# cp /etc/pki/tls/certs/tormento.olea.org.crt.pem /etc/pki/dovecot/certs/dovecot.pem

apache

Common things you would need to do with your certificates and keys:

Export public key:

openssl rsa -in /etc/pki/tls/private/tormento.olea.org.key.pem -pubout -out /etc/pki/tls/public/tormento.olea.org.pub.pem -outform PEM

Print human readable key data:

openssl rsa -noout -text -in /etc/pki/tls/private/tormento.olea.org.key.pem

Print human readable certificate contents:

openssl x509 -noout -text -in /etc/pki/tls/certs/tormento.olea.org.crt.pem

Other info of interest

I've not studied it yet but probably it's worth to read the Fedora developments on managing system crypto keys and signatures:

PD: Added info for dovecot.

El día que Personet reemplace a Internet

2014-01-14 00:00:00 +0100

Lo típico de que Yorokobu te pide un párrafo de prospectiva a 100 años vista y va y te sale una distopía: «el día que Personet reemplace a Internet». Así no hay manera.

Convocatoria: encuentro del taller de hardware abierto

2014-01-14 00:00:00 +0100

La chavalada, la #GenteQueHaceCosas con hardware en Almería, se ha organizado en un taller permanente de hardware abierto y ha decidido realizar su primer encuentro presencial específicamente dedicado al cacharreo.

Dirigido a

Ti, que te mola el cacharreo.
Para ti también, que tienes ganas locas de empezar.
A ti también, que te dedicas profesionalmente a estos temas pero que ahora quieres jugar.
A ti también, aunque sabemos que sólo lo haces para impresionar a las visitas.
Tú, que no has pensado todavía qué hacer para el proyecto de fin de carrera, vente un rato y alguna idea se te puede ocurrir entre tanto disparate.
Y a ti también, que para las pocas chicas que suelen venir no queremos que faltes. Tráete a tus amigas, por favor.
Y si tu eres de los que ha ganado algún campeonato de Lego Mindstorms vente y explícale tu arte a todos estos aprendices.

Programa

Charla: electrónica libre. Estado del arte y presentación de dispositivos y proyectos.
Debate: ¿Se puede vivir haciendo electrónica libre? ¿Cómo hacerlo? ¿Qué licencias elegir? ¿Hay que patentar?
Propuestas para definir un programa de actividades dentro de los próximos encuentros de hardware libre.

Traed vuestras propuestas. Traed a todas vuestras amistades que tengan interés. Y si tenéis vuestros propios trastos, traedlos e impresionad a los parroquianos.

Coordenadas espacio-temporales

Los amiguetes de La Oficina Cultural se prestan a darnos cobijo en su local y la cita es:

miércoles 22 de enero
20:30h

Recordad que en La Oficina hay comercio y bebercio a precios populares y que consumiendo todos un poquito les ayudamos a mantener la actividad..

¡Happy hacking!