Our team has a Windows 2008 server which is used primary for a common IIS dev box.
I want to enable SSL on one of the websites on IIS, so that it can only be accessed via HTTPS.
I created a self-signing certificate in IIS and installed it. However when I access the website via the browser (Chrome, Firefox or IE - doesn't matter), it always gives the scary..."this is not secure" screen. I've tried installing the certificate on my own computer, rebooting and I still get that screen.
One thing that I noticed is when I create a self-signed certificate, it adds the domain name to it...for instance, the name of the box is webIIS and our login domain is COMPANYDOMAIN. So it will say that the certificate was created by webIIS.COMPANYDOMAIN.com. This url resolves to nothing, since there is no such thing.
Am I going about it the wrong way?
I've answered a similar question here.
Few afterwords:
Your server should have a dns name. If it is in a domain (Active directory or something) it surely does. Find it, use it in CN of the SSL certificate.
CA that will issue SSL certificate should be trusted by clients accessing the server and by the server itself. Place CA certificate in Trusted Root Store (in LocalMachine store) on the server and all clients that will access it. If you have Active Directory it should be pretty simple to distribute it.
CRL that CA has to issue in defined intervals (it's up to you if the CRL will be issued one a day, month, year or lifetime) has to be accessible by clients and server. Either place it at http url that you gave when issuing SSL certificate or manually place in each certificate store (in Trusted Root Store).
Related
I have website hosted on IIS. My main issue is that I want only users with a specific certificate installed to be able to access the site. I tried to follow some tutorials but I can't find anyone covering both server and client side, since I can't get it to work.
I have some questions to the main issue:
What kind of certificate should I use (domain/selfed signed in IIS 7.5)? I do have access to a Active Directory Certificate Services where I can create other types of certificates (CA), but the problem is when trying to import them to my IIS ("certificate cannot be used as an ssl server certificate")
I would like to use a CA certificate, but is that possible when using IIS? Or do I need to write all the code the check if the user has the right certificate?
When created a certificate for the website (e.g. though IIS)..How do I create user certificates that are trusted by the server certificate?
As you may noticed by now I'm not sure how to do all of this, and would really like some help..
Server should use SSL server certificate. This certificate has to have Server Authentication extension in Extended key usage. Server certificate should have SAN extension (Subject alternative name) with domain name of server as DNS name (i.e. somesite.com)
CA certificate has to be imported to Trusted root store (preferably Local Machine) on both server and client machines.
Client certificate should contain Client Authentication extension in Extended key usage.
All EndEntity (client and server) certificates should have CRL distribution point in them where there is URL to CRL that is issued by CA. CRL has to be accessible by both client and server and should be always valid.
You can use XCA for training purposes. It has a nice GUI and it has templates for CA, SSL server and SSL client certificates by default. Then you can mimic these certificates in your Active Directory Certificate Services. Documentation and some guides can be found here.
I have a bunch of node.js apps serving information to an apache site via websockets (ws://). The site itself doesn't have a domain name and is accessed through its IP address (that's non-negotiable, unfortunately...)
The problem is the following :
Without a secure connection, browsers will block the ws://
traffic, so I have to use SSL and secure websockets wss://
Without a domain name, I cannot secure the connection except by
generating a self-signed certificate.
Self generated certificates are not trusted by browsers and
display an error 'certificate not trusted...'. Last chrome update
made it even more annoying to get through the message.
In addition to that, the IP changes regularly and is sent to the users (2-3 people) when it happens. So a certificate issued for a specific IP wouldn't be ideal (if it's free I can deal with the hassle of refreshing the cert).
Does anyone have a solution ?
If you only have a user or two, you could create your own CA, and have each person install it on their browser. You would still need to update the cert every time the IP changes though. google.ca/search?q=create+your+own+ca
I created a self signed certificate using makecert in Microsoft's SDK. The certificate name is the same as the server and I have added it to the Trusted Root Certificate store on the client. When I look at the certificate in Chrome, it shows as ok. But when I attempt to access the site, I receive the error:
You attempted to reach [website name], but the server presented a certificate issued by an entity that is not trusted by your computer's operating system. This may mean that the server has generated its own security credentials, which Chrome cannot rely on for identity information, or an attacker may be trying to intercept your communications.
How can I get around this issue and force my operating system to trust this certificate?
the first thing to do is to test using Internet Explorer. If it doesn't work there, then something is wrong with the cert or the installation.
If it does work in I.E., then you've likely used the unqualified server hostname in the cert, and Chrome specifically does not like that. So, if you've set the common name to something like ServerName, you need to create a new cert with a fully-qualified name (such as ServerName.com) and then use that host name to access the site instead.
I have created my SSL certificate using Selssl7.exe on server1 but used Cn as Server2 and hosted the certificate on server2. I started to get a certificate error when browsing from linux firefox saying:
This certificate is invalid, the certificate is not trusted and is self signed, the certificate is only valid for server1
But when I browse the URL from Windows IE I just get the regular error saying that it's not trusted and I can easily add it to exceptions.
Can we use self-signed certificates generated on server1 on a different servers?
You can and you may but you are pretty much undermining each and every aspect of authenticity by doing so.
A self-signed certificate is generally a problem because other users will not know this certificate in advance. So their browser dutifully issues a warning. That's why you have to pay for TLS certificates that will be recognized - they are issued by CAs whose certificates are contained in the default trust store of your browser. CAs had to pay to "be part of the club", but otherwise, anyone can create certificates. It's just the matter of being recognized by default settings.
But you open another hole by reusing a certificate that was issued for a dedicated server on a different server. TLS certificates' subject distinguished names must match the host name of the server they are deployed on. This is mandated by the TLS spec because this is the only effective measure to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks when using TLS. After you open a TLS connection to a server, your code will check whether the host name that you are connected to matches the subject DN of the server's certificate that was sent. Only if it does you can be sure to be talking to the right server.
So, in conclusion, if you reuse a server certificate on a different host, then you are severely impacting the security of TLS. It's still possible, sure, but if you cripple security to this extent, then you are probably better off using plain HTTP in the first place.
I issued a self signed certificate on IIS 7.5, and it is working correctly if i access my website through my computer.
However, if i access the website from another computer, i get an warning saying the certificate was issued to another address.
Is this because the certificate was issued to localhost instead of the actual IP?
Or this doesn't make any sense?
Regards,
The error message you are getting is normal, assuming you do not have anything in your certificate aside from 'localhost' to identify the owner.
Your browser is performing a name check, and looking to validate the certificate that is presented with the URL you typed in. Typically, the common name of a certificate matches the hostname/DNS name of the machine. Alternatively, there can be information inside of the Subject Alt Name (SAN) extension of your certificate. There, you could specify multiple DNS names or IPAddress fields that identify your server in addition to the CN.
If you are simply performing internal testing, I would not be terribly worried about the warning you are receiving. Just keep all of this in mind when you move to production. Also, having your CA being self-signed, you may also receive trust warnings, unless you manually import your self-signed CA certificate into the trust store of the browser you are using.
Maybe this helps you: Self signed certificates on IIS 7. At the end of the article, in the section named "Adding the Certificate to Trusted Root Certificate Authorities", an alternative solution is shown, but it implies importing the certificate in the client machine, so that could be a huge disadvantage. However, it is a solution if you can't register the certificate on a Certificate Authority, an you have access to the client machine.