Creating self-signed certificates
Unless you are using certificates signed by a well-known
Certificate Authority (or a local enterprise CA), you will need to
create your own CA that can sign the certificates used by
sudo_logsrvd, sudo_sendlog, and the sudoers plugin. The following
steps use the openssl(1) command to create keys and certificates.
Initial setup
First, we need to create a directory structure to store the files
for the CA. We'll create a new directory hierarchy in
/etc/ssl/sudo for this purpose.
# mkdir /etc/ssl/sudo
# cd /etc/ssl/sudo
# mkdir certs csr newcerts private
# chmod 700 private
# touch index.txt
# echo 1000 > serial
The serial and index.txt files are used to keep track of signed
certificates.
Next, we need to make a copy of the openssl.conf file and customize
it for our new CA. The path to openssl.cnf is system-dependent but
/etc/ssl/openssl.cnf is the most common location. You will need to
adjust the example below if it has a different location on your
system.
# cp /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf .
Now edit the openssl.cnf file in the current directory and make
sure it contains 'ca' and 'CA_default' sections. Those sections
should include the following settings:
[ ca ]
default_ca = CA_default
[ CA_default ]
dir = /etc/ssl/sudo
certs = $dir/certs
database = $dir/index.txt
certificate = $dir/cacert.pem
serial = $dir/serial
If your openssl.conf file already has a 'CA_default' section, you
may only need to modify the 'dir' setting.
Creating the CA key and certificate
In order to create and sign our own certificates, we need to create
a private key and a certificate for the root of the CA. First,
create the private key and protect it with a pass phrase:
# openssl genrsa -aes256 -out private/cakey.pem 4096
# chmod 400 private/cakey.pem
Next, generate the root certificate, using appropriate values for
the site-specific fields:
# openssl req -config openssl.cnf -key private/cakey.pem \
-new -x509 -days 7300 -sha256 -extensions v3_ca \
-out cacert.pem
Enter pass phrase for private/cakey.pem:
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be
incorporated into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name
or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank.
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Colorado
Locality Name (eg, city) []:
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:sudo
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:sudo Certificate Authority
Common Name (e.g., server FQDN or YOUR name) []:sudo Root CA
Email Address []:
# chmod 444 cacert.pem
Finally, verify the root certificate:
# openssl x509 -noout -text -in cacert.pem
Creating and signing certificates
The server and client certificates will be signed by the previously
created root CA. Usually, the root CA is not used to sign
server/client certificates directly. Instead, intermediate
certificates are created and signed with the root CA and the
intermediate certs are used to sign CSRs (Certificate Signing
Request). In this example we'll skip this part for simplicity's
sake and sign the CSRs with the root CA.
First, generate the private key without a pass phrase.
# openssl genrsa -out private/logsrvd_key.pem 2048
# chmod 400 private/logsrvd_key.pem
Next, create a certificate signing request (CSR) for the server's
certificate. The organization name must match the name given in
the root certificate. The common name should be either the
server's IP address or a fully qualified domain name.
# openssl req -config openssl.cnf -key private/logsrvd_key.pem -new \
-sha256 -out csr/logsrvd_csr.pem
Enter pass phrase for private/logsrvd_key.pem:
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be
incorporated into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name
or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank.
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Colorado
Locality Name (eg, city) []:
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:sudo
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:sudo log server
Common Name (e.g., server FQDN or YOUR name) []:logserver.example.com
Email Address []:
Please enter the following 'extra' attributes
to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:
An optional company name []:
Now sign the CSR that was just created:
# openssl ca -config openssl.cnf -days 375 -notext -md sha256 \
-in csr/logsrvd_csr.pem -out certs/logsrvd_cert.pem
Using configuration from openssl.cnf
Enter pass phrase for ./private/cakey.pem:
Check that the request matches the signature
Signature ok
Certificate Details:
Serial Number: 4096 (0x1000)
Validity
Not Before: Nov 11 14:05:05 2019 GMT
Not After : Nov 20 14:05:05 2020 GMT
Subject:
countryName = US
stateOrProvinceName = Colorado
organizationName = sudo
organizationalUnitName = sudo log server
commonName = logserve.example.com
X509v3 extensions:
X509v3 Basic Constraints:
CA:FALSE
Netscape Comment:
OpenSSL Generated Certificate
X509v3 Subject Key Identifier:
4C:50:F9:D0:BE:1A:4C:B2:AC:90:76:56:C7:9E:16:AE:E6:9E:E5:B5
X509v3 Authority Key Identifier:
keyid:D7:91:24:16:B1:03:06:65:1A:7A:6E:CF:51:E9:5C:CB:7A:95:3E:0C
Certificate is to be certified until Nov 20 14:05:05 2020 GMT (375 days)
Sign the certificate? [y/n]:y
1 out of 1 certificate requests certified, commit? [y/n]y
Write out database with 1 new entries
Data Base Updated
Finally, verify the new certificate:
# openssl verify -CAfile cacert.pem certs/logsrvd_cert.pem
certs/logsrvd_cert.pem: OK
The /etc/ssl/sudo/certs directory now contains a signed and
verified certificate for use with sudo_logsrvd.
To generate a client certificate, repeat the process above using a
different file name.
Configuring sudo_logsrvd to use TLS
To use TLS for client/server communication, both sudo_logsrvd and
the sudoers plugin need to be configured to use TLS. Configuring
sudo_logsrvd for TLS requires the following settings, assuming the
same path names used earlier:
# Listen on port 30344 for TLS connections to any address.
listen_address = *:30344(tls)
# Path to the certificate authority bundle file in PEM format.
tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/sudo/cacert.pem
# Path to the server's certificate file in PEM format.
tls_cert = /etc/ssl/sudo/certs/logsrvd_cert.pem
# Path to the server's private key file in PEM format.
tls_key = /etc/ssl/sudo/private/logsrvd_key.pem
The root CA cert (cacert.pem) must be installed on the system
running sudo_logsrvd. If peer authentication is enabled on the
client, a copy of cacert.pem must be present on the client system
too.
