Cisco Unified Communications Operating System Administration Guide, Release 9.1(1)
Security certificate management
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Security certificate management

The operating system security options enable you to manage security certificates in these two ways:

  • Certificate Management—Manages certificates, Certificate Trust Lists (CTL), and Certificate Signing Requests (CSR). You can display, upload, download, delete, and regenerate certificates.
  • Certificate Monitor—Allows you to monitor the expiration dates of the certificates on the server.

Certificates and certificate trust list management

View certificates

Before You Begin

To access the Security menu items, you must sign in again to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration using your Administrator password.

Procedure
    Step 1   Sign in to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration.
    Step 2   Select Security > Certificate Management.
    Step 3   Perform one of the following actions:

    If you want to:

    Action

    Filter the certificate list

    Enter your search criteria, and use the Find controls as follows:
    • To filter or search records, perform one of the following actions:
      • From the first list box, select a search parameter.
      • From the second list box, select a search pattern
    • Select Find.

    View details of a certificate or trust store

    Select the .PEM or .DER file name of the certificate.

    Return to the Certificate List window

    • Select Back To Find/List in the Related Links list.
    • Select Go.

    Download certificate or certificate trust list

    Before You Begin

    To access the Security menu items, you must sign in again to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration using your Administrator password.

    Procedure
      Step 1   Sign in to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration.
      Step 2   Select Security > Certificate Management.
      Step 3   If required, use the Find controls to filter the certificate list as follows:
      1. To filter or search records, perform one of the following actions:
        • From the first list box, select a search parameter.
        • From the second list box, select a search pattern.
        • Specify the appropriate search text, if applicable.
      2. Select Find.
      Step 4   Select the file name of the certificate or CTL.
      Step 5   Select Download.

      Delete certificate

      A trusted certificate is the only type of certificate that you can delete. You can not delete a self-signed certificate that is generated by the system.


      Caution

      Deleting a certificate can affect your system operations. If there is an existing CSR for the certificate you select from the Certificate list, it is deleted from the system and you must generate a new CSR.

      Before You Begin

      To access the Security menu items, you must sign in again to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration using your Administrator password.

      Procedure
        Step 1   Sign in to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration.
        Step 2   Select Security > Certificate Management.
        Step 3   If required, use the Find controls to filter the certificate list as follows:
        1. To filter or search records, perform one of the following actions:
          • From the first list box, select a search parameter.
          • From the second list box, select a search pattern.
          • Specify the appropriate search text, if applicable.
        2. Select Find.
        Step 4   Select the file name of the certificate or CTL.
        Step 5   Select Delete.
        Related Tasks

        Regenerate certificate

        A certificate of type "cert" is the only type of certificate that you can regenerate.


        Caution

        Regenerating a certificate can affect your system operations.

        Before You Begin

        To access the Security menu items, you must sign in again to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration using your Administrator password.

        Procedure
          Step 1   Sign in to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration.
          Step 2   Select Security > Certificate Management.
          Step 3   Select Generate New.
          Step 4   Select a certificate name from the Certificate Name list.
          Table 1 Certificate Names and Descriptions

          Name

          Description

          tomcat

          This self-signed root certificate is generated during the installation of the HTTPS server.

          ipsec

          This self-signed root certificate is generated during the installation of secure IPsec server connections.

          cup

          This self-signed root certificate is generated during the installation of the IM and Presence server.

          cup-xmpp

          This self-signed root certificate is generated during the installation of the IM and Presence server.

          cup-xmpp-s2s

          This self-signed root certificate is generated during the installation of the IM and Presence server.

          Note   

          The trust certificates for cup-xmpp-s2s are stored in cup-xmpp-trust along with the general XMPP trust certificates.

          Step 5   Select Generate New.
          Step 6   Restart the Tomcat web server after you upload or regenerate a Tomcat certificate in an IM and Presence cluster.

          Upload certificate or certificate trust list


          Caution

          Uploading a new certificate or certificate trust list (CTL) file can affect your system operations.

          Before You Begin
          • The system does not distribute trust certificates to other cluster nodes automatically. If you need to have the same certificate on more than one node, you must upload the certificate to each node individually.
          • To access the Security menu items, you must sign out and sign back in to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration using your Administrator password.
          Procedure
            Step 1   Sign in to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration.
            Step 2   Select Security > Certificate Management.
            Step 3   Select Upload Certificate.
            Step 4   Select the name of the certificate or CTL from the Certificate Name list.
            Step 5   Select the file to upload by completing one or of the following actions:
            1. Enter the path to the file in the Upload File text box.
            2. Select Browse and navigate to the file.
            3. Select Open.
            Step 6   Select Upload File to upload the file to the server.
            Step 7   Restart the services that are affected by the new certificate.

            Upload directory trust certificate

            Procedure
              Step 1   Sign in to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration.
              Step 2   Select Security > Certificate Management.
              Step 3   Select Upload Certificate.
              Step 4   Select directory-trust from the Certificate Name list.
              Step 5   Enter the file to upload in the Upload File field.
              Step 6   Select Upload File.
              Step 7   Sign into Cisco Unified IM and Presence Serviceability.
              Step 8   Select Tools > Control Center - Feature Services.
              Step 9   Restart the service Cisco Dirsync.
              Step 10   Sign in to the Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration CLI as an administrator.
              Step 11   Enter the command utils service restart Cisco Tomcat to restart the Tomcat service.
              Step 12   After the services have been restarted, you can add the directory agreement for SSL.

              Configure certificate revocation

              You can use the OCSP to obtain the revocation status of the certificate. To configure OCSP, follow this procedure.

              Before You Begin

              You must upload the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) Responder certificate to tomcat-trust before enabling OCSP.

              Procedure
                Step 1   Navigate to Security > Certificate Revocation

                The Certificate Revocation window displays.

                Step 2   Check the Enable OCSP check box in the Online Certificate Status Protocol Configuration area.
                Step 3   Choose one of the following options:
                Option Description
                Use OCSP URI from Certificate

                Choose this option if the certificate is configured with OCSP URI and is to be used to contact OCSP Responder.

                To verify that there is an OCSP URI in the certificate, complete the following steps:

                1. Select Security > Certificate Management.
                2. Search for the certificate using the Find filters.
                3. Select the .PEM file or .DER file link for the certificate.
                4. In the Certificate Configuration window, ensure that there is an entry for Extension:AuthorityInfoAccessSyntax and that it has an accessLocation URL.
                Use configured OCSP URI

                Choose this option if external or configured URI is used to contact OCSP Responder. Enter the URI of the OCSP Responder, where certificate revocation status is verified, in the OCSP Configured URI field.
                Step 4   Select Save.

                The certificate revocation status check is performed only during upload of a certificate or certificate chain. The appropriate alarm will be raised if a certificate is revoked.

                Third Party CA certificates

                Cisco Unified Operating System supports certificates that a third-party Certificate Authority (CA) issues with PKCS # 10 Certificate Signing Request (CSR).

                To use an application certificate that a third-party CA issues, you must obtain both the signed application certificate and the CA root certificate from the CA. Get information about obtaining these certificates from your CA. The process varies among CAs.

                CAPF and IM and Presence Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs) include extensions that you must include in your request for an application certificate from the CA. If your CA does not support the ExtensionRequest mechanism, you must enable the X.509 extensions that are listed in the final window of the CSR generation process.

                Cisco Unified Operating System generates certificates in DER and PEM encoding formats and generates CSRs in PEM encoding format. It accepts certificates in DER and DER encoding formats.

                Cisco verified third-party certificates that were obtained from Microsoft, Keon, and Verisign CAs. Certificates from other CAs might work but have not been verified.

                Third-party certificate process management

                This procedure provides an overview of the third-party certificate process, with references to each step in sequence:

                 

                Task

                For More Information

                Step 1

                Generate a CSR on the server.

                See Generate certificate signing request.

                Step 2

                Download the CSR to your PC.

                See Download certificate signing request.

                Step 3

                Use the CSR to obtain an application certificate from a CA.

                Get information about obtaining application certificates from your CA.

                Step 4

                Obtain the CA root certificate.

                Get information about obtaining a root certificate from your CA.

                Step 5

                Upload the CA root certificate to the server.

                See Upload certificate or certificate trust list.

                Step 6

                Upload the application certificate to the server.

                See Upload certificate or certificate trust list.

                Step 7

                If you updated the certificate for CAPF or IM and Presence, generate a new CTL file.

                See Upload certificate or certificate trust list.

                Step 8

                Restart the services that are affected by the new certificate.

                For all certificate types, restart the corresponding service (for example, restart the Tomcat service if you updated the Tomcat certificate).

                For information about restarting services, see the Cisco Unified Serviceability Administration Guide.

                Generate certificate signing request

                Before You Begin
                • To access the Security menu items, you must sign in again to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration using your Administrator password.
                • For the current release of the Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System, the Directory option is no longer available in the list of Certificate Names. However, you can still upload a Directory Trust certificate from a previous release, which is required for the DirSync service to work in Secure mode.
                Procedure
                  Step 1   Sign in to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration.
                  Step 2   Select Security > Certificate Management.
                  Step 3   Select Generate CSR.
                  Step 4   Select the certificate name from the Certificate Name list.
                  Step 5   Select Generate CSR.
                  Related Tasks

                  Download certificate signing request

                  Before You Begin

                  To access the Security menu items, you must sign in again to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration using your Administrator password.

                  Procedure
                    Step 1   Sign in to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration.
                    Step 2   Select Security > Certificate Management.
                    Step 3   Select Download CSR.
                    Step 4   Select the certificate name from the Certificate Name list.
                    Step 5   Select Download CSR.

                    Monitor certificate expiration dates

                    The system can automatically send you an email when a certificate is close to its expiration date.

                    Procedure
                      Step 1   Sign in to Cisco Unified IM and Presence Operating System Administration.
                      Step 2   Select Security > Certificate Monitor to view the current Certificate Expiration Monitor configuration.
                      Step 3   In the Notification Start Time field, enter the number of days before the certificate expires that you want to be notified.
                      Step 4   In the Notification Frequency field, enter the frequency for notification, either in hours or days.
                      Step 5   Check the Enable E-mail Notification check box to enable email notification.
                      Step 6   In the E-mail IDs field, enter the email address to which you want notifications sent.
                      Note   

                      For the system to send notifications, you must configure an SMTP host.