Certificate requirements

TLS certificate and identity token-signing certificate requirements for Automation Suite installation on OpenShift.

Important:

For details on how to manage certificates post-installation, refer to Managing certificates.

Automation Suite requires two certificates at the time of installation.

• TLS certificate - required for TLS communication between the client and the cluster;

• Identity token-signing certificate - required to sign the authentication token.

  Important:

  The installation process generates self-signed certificates on your behalf. We recommend that you replace them with certificates signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA). Note that the certificates can be generated at the time of installation only if you grant the Automation Suite installer admin privileges during the installation. If you cannot grant the installer admin privileges, then you must create and manage the certificates yourself.

  Aside from the previous certificates, you may need to provide additional trusted CA certificates if you want the cluster to trust external software. Example: SQL Server CA Certificate, SMTP Server CA Certificate, external S3 compatible objectstore CA certificate, etc.

  At the time of installation, you must provide CA certificates for any external software that requires a secure TLS communication. However, if you have not enabled the TLS communication, you can configure it post-installation.

  For instructions, refer to Managing certificates.

TLS certificate requirements

• File format should be .pem, that is, Base64 encoded DER certificate;
• Private key length should be at least 2048;
• Extended Key Usage: TLS Web Server Authentication; required for accessing Automation Suite on iOS devices;
• Certificate key must be decrypted. If the key is encrypted, run the following command to decrypt it:

  # replace /path/to/encrypted/cert/key to absolute file path of key
  # replace /path/to/decrypt/cert/key to store decrypt key
  # Once prompted, please entry the passphrase or password to decrypt the key
  
  openssl rsa -in /path/to/encrypted/cert/key -out /path/to/decrypt/cert/key
  

• Should have Subject Alternative Name for all the DNS entries required for installing Automation Suite. If the FQDN for the cluster is automationsuite.mycompany.com, the certificate SAN should have the following DNS:
  • automationsuite.mycompany.com
  • *.automationsuite.mycompany.com
    Note:

    Alternatively, if the * wildcard is too generic, make sure you have SAN entries for the following DNS:

    • automationsuite.mycompany.com
    • insights.automationsuite.mycompany.com
    • apps.automationsuite.mycompany.com

TLS certificate file

Automation Suite requires three files at the time of installation, as follows:

• TLS certificate file - the server's public certificate file. This file must contain the complete public server certificate chain in PEM format: the leaf server certificate, followed by the intermediate CA certificate(s), and the root CA that form the signing path for that leaf certificate. Include only certificates that are part of the leaf certificate's actual signing chain - do not include sibling, unrelated, duplicate, or alternate CA certificates.
• TLS key file - private key file for the server certificate.
• Certificate Authority Bundle - this is the Public Certificate of CA which is used to sign or issue the TLS certificate. This file must contain the complete certificate chain, including the root CA and all intermediate certificates. Include only the certificates used to sign the TLS server certificate. Including anything else will lead to failure.

Important:

Starting with Automation Suite 2.2510.2, ca.crt must contain the complete certificate chain used to sign the TLS server certificate, including all intermediate certificates and the root CA. Partial chains are not accepted, and including certificates outside the leaf certificate's actual signing chain - such as sibling, unrelated, duplicate, or alternate CA certificates - will also cause TLS validation to fail. For troubleshooting TLS certificate validation errors, refer to TLS certificate validation errors.

To verify the CA and TLS certificate, run the following command on the Linux machine:

# Please replace /path/to/ca-certificate-bundle and /path/to/server-certificate with actual file path.

openssl verify -CAfile /path/to/ca-certificate-bundle /path/to/server-certificate

If you choose to bring your own Cert Manager, and your TLS certificate is issued by a private or non-public CA, you must manually include both the leaf certificate and intermediate CA certificates in the TLS certificate file. In case of public CAs, they are automatically trusted by client systems, and no further action is required on your part.

Identity token-signing certificate

Automation Suite has the following requirements in terms of token-signing certificates at the time of installation:

• File format should be pkcs12 to sign the authentication token;
• Password for signing the certificate is required.

If an identity token signing certificate is not provided, Automation Suite uses the server certificates to generate the one at the time of installation.