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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html><head><title>TLS-protected syslog: scenario</title>
+</head>
+<body>
+
+<h1>Encrypting Syslog Traffic with TLS (SSL)</h1>
+<p><small><i>Written by <a href="http://www.adiscon.com/en/people/rainer-gerhards.php">Rainer
+Gerhards</a> (2008-06-17)</i></small></p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="rsyslog_secure_tls.html">Overview</a>
+<li><a href="tls_cert_scenario.html">Sample Scenario</a>
+<li><a href="tls_cert_ca.html">Setting up the CA</a>
+<li><a href="tls_cert_machine.html">Generating Machine Certificates</a>
+<li><a href="tls_cert_server.html">Setting up the Central Server</a>
+<li><a href="tls_cert_client.html">Setting up syslog Clients</a>
+<li><a href="tls_cert_udp_relay.html">Setting up the UDP syslog relay</a>
+<li><a href="tls_cert_summary.html">Wrapping it all up</a>
+</ul>
+
+<h3>Setting up the CA</h3>
+<p>The first step is to set up a certificate authority (CA). It must be
+maintained by a trustworthy person (or group) and approves the indentities of
+all machines. It does so by issuing their certificates. In a small setup, the
+administrator can provide the CA function. What is important is the the CA's
+private key is well-protocted and machine certificates are only issued if it is
+know they are valid (in a single-admin case that means the admin should not
+issue certificates to anyone else except himself).</p>
+<p>The CA creates a so-called self-signed certificate. That is, it approves its
+own authenticy. This sounds useless, but the key point to understand is that
+every machine will be provided a copy of the CA's certificate. Accepting this
+certificate is a matter of trust. So by configuring the CA certificate, the
+administrator tells <a href="http://www.rsyslog.com">rsyslog</a> which certificates to trust. This is the root of all
+trust under this model. That is why the CA's private key is so important -
+everyone getting hold of it is trusted by our rsyslog instances.</p>
+<center><img src="tls_cert_ca.jpg"></center>
+<p>To create a self-signed certificate, use the following commands with GnuTLS (which
+is currently the only supported TLS library, what may change in the future).
+Please note that GnuTLS' tools are not installed by default on many platforms. Also,
+the tools do not necessarily come with the GnuTLS core package. If you do not
+have certtool on your system, check if there is package for the GnuTLS tools available
+(under Fedora, for example, this is named gnutls-utils-&lt;version&gt; and
+it is NOT installed by default). </p>
+<ol>
+<li>generate the private key:
+<pre>certtool --generate-privkey --outfile ca-key.pem</pre>
+<br>
+This takes a short while. Be sure to do some work on your workstation,
+it waits for radom input. Switching between windows is sufficient ;)
+</li>
+<li>now create the (self-signed) CA certificate itself:<br>
+<pre>certtool --generate-self-signed --load-privkey ca-key.pem --outfile ca.pem</pre>
+This generates the CA certificate. This command queries you for a
+number of things. Use appropriate responses. When it comes to
+certificate validity, keep in mind that you need to recreate all
+certificates when this one expires. So it may be a good idea to use a
+long period, eg. 3650 days (roughly 10 years). You need to specify that
+the certificates belongs to an authority. The certificate is used to
+sign other certificates.<br>
+</li>
+</ol>
+<h3>Sample Screen Session</h3>
+<p>Text in red is user input. Please note that for some questions, there is no
+user input given. This means the default was accepted by simply pressing the
+enter key.
+<code><pre>
+[root@rgf9dev sample]# <font color="red">certtool --generate-privkey --outfile ca-key.pem --bits 2048</font>
+Generating a 2048 bit RSA private key...
+[root@rgf9dev sample]# <font color="red">certtool --generate-self-signed --load-privkey ca-key.pem --outfile ca.pem</font>
+Generating a self signed certificate...
+Please enter the details of the certificate's distinguished name. Just press enter to ignore a field.
+Country name (2 chars): <font color="red">US</font>
+Organization name: <font color="red">SomeOrg</font>
+Organizational unit name: <font color="red">SomeOU</font>
+Locality name: <font color="red">Somewhere</font>
+State or province name: <font color="red">CA</font>
+Common name: <font color="red">someName (not necessarily DNS!)</font>
+UID:
+This field should not be used in new certificates.
+E-mail:
+Enter the certificate's serial number (decimal):
+
+
+Activation/Expiration time.
+The certificate will expire in (days): <font color="red">3650</font>
+
+
+Extensions.
+Does the certificate belong to an authority? (Y/N): <font color="red">y</font>
+Path length constraint (decimal, -1 for no constraint):
+Is this a TLS web client certificate? (Y/N):
+Is this also a TLS web server certificate? (Y/N):
+Enter the e-mail of the subject of the certificate: <font color="red">someone@example.net</font>
+Will the certificate be used to sign other certificates? (Y/N): <font color="red">y</font>
+Will the certificate be used to sign CRLs? (Y/N):
+Will the certificate be used to sign code? (Y/N):
+Will the certificate be used to sign OCSP requests? (Y/N):
+Will the certificate be used for time stamping? (Y/N):
+Enter the URI of the CRL distribution point:
+X.509 Certificate Information:
+ Version: 3
+ Serial Number (hex): 485a365e
+ Validity:
+ Not Before: Thu Jun 19 10:35:12 UTC 2008
+ Not After: Sun Jun 17 10:35:25 UTC 2018
+ Subject: C=US,O=SomeOrg,OU=SomeOU,L=Somewhere,ST=CA,CN=someName (not necessarily DNS!)
+ Subject Public Key Algorithm: RSA
+ Modulus (bits 2048):
+ d9:9c:82:46:24:7f:34:8f:60:cf:05:77:71:82:61:66
+ 05:13:28:06:7a:70:41:bf:32:85:12:5c:25:a7:1a:5a
+ 28:11:02:1a:78:c1:da:34:ee:b4:7e:12:9b:81:24:70
+ ff:e4:89:88:ca:05:30:0a:3f:d7:58:0b:38:24:a9:b7
+ 2e:a2:b6:8a:1d:60:53:2f:ec:e9:38:36:3b:9b:77:93
+ 5d:64:76:31:07:30:a5:31:0c:e2:ec:e3:8d:5d:13:01
+ 11:3d:0b:5e:3c:4a:32:d8:f3:b3:56:22:32:cb:de:7d
+ 64:9a:2b:91:d9:f0:0b:82:c1:29:d4:15:2c:41:0b:97
+ Exponent:
+ 01:00:01
+ Extensions:
+ Basic Constraints (critical):
+ Certificate Authority (CA): TRUE
+ Subject Alternative Name (not critical):
+ RFC822name: someone@example.net
+ Key Usage (critical):
+ Certificate signing.
+ Subject Key Identifier (not critical):
+ fbfe968d10a73ae5b70d7b434886c8f872997b89
+Other Information:
+ Public Key Id:
+ fbfe968d10a73ae5b70d7b434886c8f872997b89
+
+Is the above information ok? (Y/N): <font color="red">y</font>
+
+
+Signing certificate...
+[root@rgf9dev sample]# <font color="red">chmod 400 ca-key.pem</font>
+[root@rgf9dev sample]# <font color="red">ls -l</font>
+total 8
+-r-------- 1 root root 887 2008-06-19 12:33 ca-key.pem
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1029 2008-06-19 12:36 ca.pem
+[root@rgf9dev sample]#
+</pre></code>
+<p><font color="red"><b>Be sure to safeguard ca-key.pem!</b> Nobody except the CA itself
+needs to have it. If some third party obtains it, you security is broken!</font>
+<h2>Copyright</h2>
+<p>Copyright (c) 2008 <a href="http://www.adiscon.com/en/people/rainer-gerhards.php">Rainer
+Gerhards</a> and
+<a href="http://www.adiscon.com/en/">Adiscon</a>.</p>
+<p> Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
+document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version
+1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
+with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover
+Texts. A copy of the license can be viewed at
+<a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html">http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html</a>.</p>
+</body></html>