Certificate based authentication for Exchange ActiveSync in Windows 8.* Mail app

I have a Surface Pro and want to setup access to my company's Exchange server that accepts only Exchange ActiveSync certificate-based authentication.
I've installed server certificates to trusted pool and my certificate as personal.
Then I can connect thru Internet Explorer, but this is not comfortable to use.
I don't have a password because of security politics of our company. When I'm setting up this account on my Android phone I'm using any digit for password and it works perfectly.
Can someone help to setup Windows 8 metro-style Mail application? Does it supports this type of auth? When I'm trying to add account with type Outlook, entering server name, domain name, username, 1 as a password then I've got a message like "Can't
connect. Check your settings."
Is there any plans to implement this feature?

For what it's worth we have CBA working with Windows 8.1 Pro. In our case we have a MobileIron Sentry server acting as an ActiveSync reverse-proxy, so it verifies the client cert then uses Kerberos Constrained Delegation back to the Exchange CAS, however
it should work exactly the same to the Exchange server directly. I just used the CA to issue a User Certificate, exported the cert, private key and root CA cert, copied to the WinPro8.1 device and into the Personal Store. Configured the Mail app
to point at the ActiveSync gateway, Mail asked if I would like to allow it access the certificate (it chose it automatically) and mail synced down immediately...
So it definitely works with Windows Pro 8.1.

Similar Messages

The latest version of Reader Mobile iOS (11.6) support certificate-based authentication (for LiveCycle RightsManagement server)?

The previous release (10.1) say: "Support for our other LiveCycle authentication types may appear in future releases, including Kerberos, Smartcard/PKI certificate-based authentication, SAML-based authentication, or other SSO mechanisms."
Now in 11.6 certificate-based authentication is enabled?
Thanks

Apparently, security programs like Macafee and Norton view Itunes updates as new programs and block then from access. If you add Itunes to the list of exemptions, it solves the problem.

Certificate based authentication for mobile

We are looking at deploying mobile applications to our mobile BYOD estate. One of the ideas we're looking at is using user certificates pushed to the devices as a form of authentication in addition to the PIN the users will need to enter. The certificates
would be pushed to the devices when they enroll.
We can spin up a Windows 2008 Server PKI to generate the certs. The idea is:
i. User downloads an app from our corporate app store
ii. As part of the enrollment process, they will contact a server named MobileAppSvr1 that will request a certificate on their behalf from the internal PKI.
iii. The certificate will be created which binds the public key to the username
iv. The certificate is pushed to the device via MobileAppSvr1
v. Whenever the user wishes to launch the app again, then they are requested to enter a password and MobileAppSvr1 would also check the cert hasn't been revoked for that user.
Some questions:
a) I understand the certificate is digitally signed by our CA. Does this mean the user's device has to trust the CA or MobileAppSvr1?
b) Where does the Private Key come into play here? Does any decryption need to be done at all?
c) Do we need any s/w on the mobile device to decrypt anything?
d) Would the above solution (steps i to v) work theoretically?

Hi,
I apologize for my mistakes in the previous reply.
When Certificate Services work in conjunction with
CryptoAPI, after a client generated a request for a new certificate, the request is first sent from the requesting program to CryptoAPI.
Then, CryptoAPI provides the proper data to a
cryptographic service provider (CSP) that is installed on your computer or on a device that is accessible to your computer.
After that, the CSP
will generate a key pair. The public key is sent to the certification authority (CA), along with the certificate-requester information, while the private key is stored in the requester’s protected certificate store
(no sending), and CryptoAPI will manage the private key for all cryptography operations.
Here are some related articles below for your references:
Microsoft CryptoAPI and Cryptographic Service Providers
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc962093.aspx
Cryptographic Service Providers
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731248.aspx
Installing New Cryptographic Service Providers
http://blogs.technet.com/b/industry_insiders/archive/2007/04/03/installing-new-cryptographic-service-providers.aspx
Have a nice day!
Amy

What are steps configure Certificate based authentication for Wireless clients with ACS 5.3?

I need to autheticate my clients connecting via wireless.
clients have user certificate installed on them, i need help configuring the ACS to do the authentication.
can some one please help me with the steps.
Thanks

Two primary steps
- define the trust certificates needed to verify the clients user certificates
Users and Identity Stores > Certificate Authorities
- change result of identity policy to select a certificate authorization profile. If have the defautl config
Access Policies > Access Services > Default Network Access > Identity
by default can select the "CN Username" as a result

OWA and ActiveSync certificate based authentication

I have Exchange 2013 CU3 installed and want to activate the certificate based authentication for ActiveSync and OWA. But I want to have the login without certificate as well for users without a certificate.
I already found some information how to do that on Exchange 2010 and I already did all steps to activate it.
But at one point I cant find anything to configure in Exchange 2013. So I have activated the AD certificate based authentication in ISS and configured the OWA folder in IIS to accept client certificates. This seems to work as I get asked to use the certificate
when I open the OWA page. But then I am landing on the OWA login page where I have to enter username and password.
So it seems that I am missing something. In the tutorials for Exchange 2010 they activate the certificate based authentication in the Management console. But I cant find anything in ECP to activate.
Can anyone help me?

Hi,
We can create an additional Web Site in IIS to configure additional OWA and ECP virtual directory for external access. And configuring the Default Web Site for internal access.
Then we can configure internal one with Integrated Windows authentication and Basic authentication while the external one configured for forms-based authentication of Domain\user name format. For more information about
Configuring Multiple OWA/ECP Virtual Directories, we can refer to:
https://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/01/17/configuring-multiple-owa-ecp-virtual-directories-on-exchange-2010-client-access-server.aspx
Thanks,
Winnie Liang
TechNet Community Support

ActiveSync with Certificate-Based Authentication

We are trying to setup ActiveSync with certificate-based authentication against Exchange 2010 SP2, but with no luck.
What has been done so far:
OWA over https works fine. A public, trusted certificate is in place.
Setup ActiveSync against this Exchange server: works fine, using user name/password.
Issued a user cert, signed with an internal CA, CA-cert successfully imported into al client devices.
Created a new OWA-site with cert-based authentication (just to make sure it works), imported user certificate into a mac, visit this OWA site - cert-based authentication works fine.
Now, with the configuration utility, created configuration profile with that user cert and an ActiveSync account, left password blank and chose the imported cert (p12) as authentication means.
After installing that last profile the device keeps asking for a password and refuses to synchronize. Logs on the server show error 401.2, so I assume iPhone is ignoring the cert and is trying to use password-authentication instead.
The devices tested were iPhone 3G with IOS 4 and iPad 2 with IOS 5.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Roman.

No-one with this experience?
We've done some network analysis (as much as was possible to decrypt) and could see, that the server sends an SSL-Alert (rejection?) to the client after the client presents the certificate.
That explains why the client falls back to password-authentication, but it does not tell us why the server rejects the cert (that is accepted perfectly when accessed from a browser) in first place.

Exchange 2010 SP3 OWA with certificate based authentication

Hi,
I have a bizarre problem in my customer’s environment. Maybe someone has an idea.
Exchange 2010 with SP3, latest cumulative Update installed.
The problem I’m having is that when I enable Certificate based authentication (require client certificate option in IIS) on OWA and ECP virtual directories in conjunction with forms based authentication (this is the requirement – the user
must have a client certificate and type in username and password to log in to OWA), the result is that after the user selects the certificate he wants to use, he is logged into OWA automatically, but cannot use the website, because it’s being constantly automatically
refreshed (or redirected to itself or something like that). The behavior occurs with all users, with any browser. If client certificate is on required, forms based authentication works just fine. If I switch to “Basic Authentication” and enable client certificate
requirement, then OWA act’s as it should be – so no problems. The problem only occurs when authentication type is forms based and client certificates are required.
I have tried the exact same settings (as far as I can tell) on one other production server and one test server, and encountered no such problems.
Anyone – any ideas?

Hi McWax,
According to your description and test, I understand that all accounts cannot login OWA when select require client certificate.
Is there any error message when open OWA or login? For example, return error ”HTTP error: 403 - Forbidden”. Please post relative error for further troubleshooting.
I want to confirm which authentication methods are used for OWA, Integrated Windows authentication or Digest authentication? More details about it, for your reference:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb430796(v=exchg.141).aspx
If you select another authentication method, please check whether Client Certificate Mapping Authentication services is installed, and also enabled in IIS, please refer to:
http://www.iis.net/configreference/system.webserver/security/authentication/clientcertificatemappingauthentication
To prevent firewall factor, please try to sign in OWA at CAS server. Besides, I find a FAQ about certificate:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998424(v=exchg.80).aspx
Best Regards,
Allen Wang

How does Certificate based authentication work?

We are doing
Certificate based authentication in an enterprise with android phones and exchange 2010.
We are using activesync to talk to exchange over SSL.
It is working.
I am trying to document HOW it works (on a fairly high level).
I have some information, but would like to know what happens when exchange gets the actual client auth cert from the device in the last part of the authentication process.
Does exchange forward it in toto to AD, since AD (and its related PKI service) created the cert?
Thanks.
Mac

Hi Ainm
Exchange ActiveSync supports several types of user authentication. By default, Exchange ActiveSync is configured to use Basic authentication. This transmits the user name and password in clear text. You can configure Exchange ActiveSync to use certificate-based
authentication. This method uses a certificate on both the server and the device to validate the connection from the device to the server.
There are differences between the mobile operating systems as to what format they like their certificates in, but both Windows Mobile and iPhone are happy to use pfx files whereas Android prefers it as a p12 (which can be just a renamed pfx file if you like).
Certificate based authentication is done via kerberos and yes Exchange should perform the lookup with AD for verifying that your certificate is good and valid.
Remember to mark as helpful if you find my contribution useful or as an answer if it does answer your question.That will encourage me - and others - to take time out to help you Check out my latest blog posts on http://exchangequery.com Thanks Sathish
(MVP)

NPS and Cisco ASA 5510 - AnyConnect Certificate based authentication

Hi everyone,
Hoping someone can help please.
We're trying to go for a single VPN solution at our company, as we currently have a few through, when buying other companies.
We're currently running a 2008 R2 domain, so we're looking at NPS and we have Cisco ASA 5510 devices for the VPN side.
What we would like to achieve, is certificate based authentication. So, user laptop has certificate applied via group policy based on domain membership and group settings, then user goes home. They connect via Cisco AnyConnect via the Cisco ASA 5510 and
then that talks to MS 2008 R2 NPS and authenticates for VPN access and following that, network connectivity.
Has anyone implemented this before and if so, are there any guides available please?
Many Thanks,
Dean.

Hi Dean,
Thanks for posting here.
Yes, this is possible . But we have guide about a sample that using Windows based server (RRAS) to act as VPN server and working with Windows RADIUS/NPS server and use certificate based authentication method (Extensible Authentication Protocol-Transport
Layer Security (EAP-TLS) or PEAP-TLS without smart cards) for reference :
Checklist: Configure NPS for Dial-Up and VPN Access
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754114.aspx
Thanks.
Tiger Li
Tiger Li
TechNet Community Support

Transition to Certificate Based Authentication

Hello,
I was hoping someone could help provide some insight into a question I have. We are in the process of rolling out a new Mobile Device Management system that will give us the ability to insert User Certificates on the mobile devices.
My question is: While we are in transition to this system, is it possible to have both Digest AND Certificate Based authentication working on Exchange (2010) without causing service disruption to the devices that have not yet been migrated to the new MDM
system?
Thank you in advance,
Ryan

Hi,
Reporting Services uses the HTTP SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) service to establish encrypted connections to a report server. If you have certificate (.cer) file installed in a local certificate store on the report server computer, you can bind the certificate
to a Reporting Services URL reservation to support report server connections through an encrypted channel.
Server certificates are installed on the Web server and typically require no additional configuration on the clients. Server certificates allow the clients to verify the identity of the server.
Because, some Web sites and applications might require client certificates. Client certificates are installed on the client and allow the server to authenticate the clients. For more information about configuring client certificates, see
Enabling Client Certificates in IIS 6.0 . But Client certificates is not supported in the SSRS 2005 later version. So SSRS 2008 R2 will not allow the server to authenticate the clients.
More details information in article below for your reference:
Configuring a Report Server for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Connections
If you still have any problem, please feel free to ask.
Regards,
Vicky Liu
Vicky Liu
TechNet Community Support

Client certificate based authentication

We have a JAVA web start application that needs to connect to an apache server and use client certificate based authentication. When javaws initiates a connection with apache server, it tries to retrieve the certificate/key from the PKCS12 keystore to present it to the apache server. We have made this work, however, javaws is prompting user to enter the password for accessing the keystore password. We do not want our users to enter this password and are looking into ways to either supply the password as one of the javaws deployment property or create an unprotected keystore. Both of our attempts have been unsuccessfull. We have tried the following
1. we passed the 3 discussed properties (javax.net.ssl.keyStore,
javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword, javax.net.ssl.keyStoreType) in Java
Control Panel, according to the following procedure: open Control Panel,
select Java tab, click View under Java Applet Runtime Settings, set
values in Java Runtime Parameters table column. This operation added the
properties to the user's deployment file (in a new attribute named
deployment.javapi.jre.1.5.0_09.args, which held all 3 properties as a
value), but there was no effect (password window still popped up).
2. We setup the deployment.property file manually with the 3 attributes
[javax.net.ssl.keyStore, javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword,
javax.net.ssl.keyStoreType], it didn't have any affect either.
3. When launching java applications you can set system properties as
part of the command line using the follwing format
"-D<property_name>=<property_value>", we failed to find the analogous in
javaws.
Has anyone got any ideas on how to workaround this problem? Really appreciate any help here.

Hi, client cert auth is not realy the best way to protect your resources. It needs to install client cert on every workstation to access application. I think it conflict with javaws concept!
I have the same situation (protect resources and avoid password promt on start) and my solution is:
Using tomcat as web server:
Direct structure as follow:
/ApplicationRoot
       /WEB-INF
             /resources
                    - private.jar
                    - private.jnlp
        /resources
             - icon.png
             - public.jarAs you can see there is no direct access to protected resources. All protected resources availiable only thrue ResourceProvider servlet, configured as follow (web.xml):
<servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>ResourceProvider</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/resources/secret/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<security-constraint>
        <web-resource-collection>
            <web-resource-name>protected resources awailiable from browser</web-resource-name>
            <url-pattern>/resources/secret/browser/*</url-pattern>
        </web-resource-collection>
        <auth-constraint>
            <role-name>somerole</role-name>
        </auth-constraint>
        <user-data-constraint>
            <transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>
        </user-data-constraint>
</security-constraint>
<security-role>
        <role-name>somerole</role-name>
</security-role>
<login-config>
        <auth-method>BASIC</auth-method>
        <realm-name></realm-name>
</login-config>Code your ResourceProvider servlet to grant access only if:
- Connection is secure (ssl).
- URL pattern is "/resources/secret/browser/*" and client has pass realm.
- URL pattern is "/resources/secret/javaws/secretkey/*" (where secretkey is a pin kept both by client and server)
To Install app from browser (access private.jnpl) use "/resources/secret/browser/*" url pattern and basic auth.
To download app resources configure jnlp file as follow:
<jnlp spec="1.0+" codebase="https://host:port/AppRoot/resources/" href="secret/javaws/secretkey/private.jnlp
    <information>
         <icon href="icon.png"/>
    </information>
    <resources>
        <j2se version="1.6+"/>
        <jar href="secret/javaws/secretkey/private.jar" />
        <jar href="public.jar" />
    </resources>
</jnlp>
{code}
And last you need to do is configure ssl connector on tomcat server as follow:
{code}
<Connector port="port"
         scheme="https"
         secure="true"
         SSLEnabled="true"
         clientAuth="false"
         sslProtocol="TLS"
/>
{code}
Pay attention to "clientAuth" param. Set it to "false" to avoid javaws splash cert choose dialog on every app update.
Hope it help!

Certificate based authentication to Reporting services (2008r2)

Is it possible to use certificate based authentication to reporting services website? I found solutions for windows basic and forms authentication types.
Best regards

Hi,
Reporting Services uses the HTTP SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) service to establish encrypted connections to a report server. If you have certificate (.cer) file installed in a local certificate store on the report server computer, you can bind the certificate
to a Reporting Services URL reservation to support report server connections through an encrypted channel.
Server certificates are installed on the Web server and typically require no additional configuration on the clients. Server certificates allow the clients to verify the identity of the server.
Because, some Web sites and applications might require client certificates. Client certificates are installed on the client and allow the server to authenticate the clients. For more information about configuring client certificates, see
Enabling Client Certificates in IIS 6.0 . But Client certificates is not supported in the SSRS 2005 later version. So SSRS 2008 R2 will not allow the server to authenticate the clients.
More details information in article below for your reference:
Configuring a Report Server for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Connections
If you still have any problem, please feel free to ask.
Regards,
Vicky Liu
Vicky Liu
TechNet Community Support

Need Help about Certificate based Authentication

Hi friends..
Currently, i'm trying to develop an applet that using Certificate Based Authentication..
i have looked at this thread : http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5433603
these is what Safarmer says about steps to generate CSR :
0. Generate key pair on the card.
1. Get public key from card
2. Build CSR off card from the details you have, the CSR will not have a signature
3. Decide on the signature you want to use (the rest assumes SHA1 with RSA Encryption)
4. Generate a SHA1 hash of the CSR (without the signature section)
5. Build a DigestInfo structure (BER encoded TLV that you can get from the PKCS#1 standard) that contains the message digest generated in the previous step
6. Send DigestInfo to the card
7. On the card, the matching private key to encrypt the DigestInfo
8. Return the encrypted digest info to the host
9. Insert the response into the CSR as the signature
Sorry, i'm a little bit confused about those steps.. (Sorry i'm pretty new in X509Certificate)..
on step 4,
Generate a SHA1 hash of the CSR (without the signature section)
Does it mean we have to "build" CSR looks like :
Data:
Version: 0 (0x0)
Subject: C=US, ST=California, L=West Hollywood, O=ITDivision, OU=Mysys, CN=leonardo.office/[email protected]
Subject Public Key Info:
Public Key Algorithm: rsaEncryption
RSA Public Key: (1024 bit)
Modulus (1024 bit):
00:be:a0:5e:35:99:1c:d3:49:ba:fb:2f:87:6f:d8:
ed:e4:61:f2:ae:6e:87:d0:e2:c0:fd:c1:0f:ed:d7:
84:04:b5:c5:66:cd:6b:f0:27:a2:cb:aa:3b:d7:ad:
fa:f4:72:10:08:84:88:19:24:d0:b0:0b:a0:71:6d:
23:5e:53:4f:1b:43:07:98:4d:d1:ea:00:d1:e2:29:
ea:be:a9:c5:3e:78:f3:5e:30:1b:6c:98:16:60:ba:
61:57:63:5e:6a:b5:99:17:1c:ae:a2:86:fb:5b:8b:
24:46:59:3f:e9:84:06:e2:91:b9:2f:9f:98:04:01:
db:38:2f:5b:1f:85:c1:20:eb
Exponent: 65537 (0x10001)
Attributes:
a0:00
on step 5, Build a DigestInfo structure (BER encoded TLV that you can get from the PKCS#1 standard) that contains the message digest generated in the previous step
How DigestInfo structure (BER encoded TLV that you can get from the PKCS#1 standard) looks like?
And what is the DigestInfo Contains, and what is TAG for DigestInfo?..
Please help me regarding this..
Thanks in advance..
Leonardo Carreira

Hi,
Leonardo Carreira wrote:
Sorry, Encode the Public Key is handled by On Card Application or Off Card Application?..
I think its' easier to encode the public key by Off Card app..
Could you guide me how to achieve this?, i think Bouncy Castle can do this, but sorry, i don't know how to write code for it.. :( All you need to do is extract the modulus and exponent of the public key. These will be in a byte array (response from your card) that you can use to create a public key object in your host application. You can then use this key to create a CSR with bouncycastle.
I have several some questions :
1. Does Javacard provide API to deal with DER data format?JC 2.2.1 does not buy JC 2.2.2 does, however I believe this is an optional package though. You can implement this in your applet though.
2. Regarding the Certificate Based Authentication, what stuff that need to be stored in the Applet?..
- I think Applet must holds :
- its Private Key,
- its Public Key Modulus and its Public Key Exponent,
- its Certificate,
- Host Certificate
i think this requires too much EEPROM to store only the key..This depends on what you mean by Certificate Based Authentication. If you want your applet to validate certificates it is sent against a certificate authority (CA) then you need the public keys for each trust point to the root CA. To use the certificate for the card, you need the certificate and corresponding private key. You would not need to use the public key on the card so this is not needed. You definitely need the private key.
Here is a rough estimate of data storage requirements for a 2048 bit key (this is done off the top of my head so is very rough):
~800 bytes for your private key
~260 bytes per public key for PKI hierarchy (CA trust points)
~1 - 4KB for the certificate. This depends on the amount of data you put in your cert
3. What is the appropriate RSA key length that appropriate, because we have to take into account that the buffer, is only 255 bytes (assume i don't use Extended Length)..You should not base your key size on your card capabilities. You can always use APDU chaining to get more data onto the card. Your certificate is guaranteed to be larger than 256 bytes anyway. You should look at the NIST recommendations for key strengths. These are documented in NIST SP 800-57 [http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsSPs.html]. You need to ensure that the key is strong enough to protect the data for a long enough period. If the key is a transport key, it needs to be stronger than the key you are transporting. As you can see there are a lot of factors to consider when deciding on key size. I would suggest you use the strongest key your card supports unless performance is not acceptable. Then you would need to analyse your key requirements to ensure your key is strong enough.
Cheers,
Shane

Certificate based authentication with sender SOAP adapter. Please help!

Hi Experts,
I have a scenario where first a .Net application makes a webservice call to XI via SOAP Adapter. Then the input from the .Net application is sent to the R/3 system via RFC adapter.
.Net --->SOAP -
>XI -
>RFC -
R/3 System
Now as per client requirement I have to implement certificate based authentication in the sender side for the webservice call. In this case the .Net application is the "client" and XI is the "server". In other words the client has to be authenticated by XI server. In order to accomplish this I have setup the security level in the SOAP sender channel as "HTTPS with client authentication". Additionally I have assigned a .Net userid in the sender agreement under "Assigned users" tab.
I have also installed the SSL certificate in the client side. Then generated the public key and loaded it into the XI server's keystore.
When I test the webservice via SOAPUI tool I am always getting the "401 Unauthorized" error. However if I give the userid/password for XI login in the properties option in the SOAPUI tool then it works fine. But my understanding is that in certificate based authentication, the authentication should happen based on the certificate and hence there is no need for the user to enter userid/password. Is my understanding correct? How to exactly test certificate based authentication?
Am I missing any steps for certificate based authentication?
Please help
Thanks
Gopal
Edited by: gopalkrishna baliga on Feb 5, 2008 10:51 AM

Hi!
Although soapUI is a very goot SOAP testing tool, you can't test certificate based authentication with it. There is no way (since I know) how to import certificat into soapUI.
So, try to find other tool, which can use certificates or tey it directly with the sender system.
Peter

Certificate based authentication

I have a client application that requires certificate based authentication.
I could not find any instructions on how to set this up in the 11g manuals. So I reverted to the 5.2 manual (http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19850-01/816-6698-10/ssl.html#18500), and followed some instructions found online.
I have completed the setup, and the client is able to authenticate using his certificate, and I have verified this in the logs.
[22/Mar/2012:13:13:33 -0500] conn=34347 op=-1 msgId=-1 - SSL 128-bit RC4; client CN=userid,OU=company,L=city,ST=state,C=US; issuer CN=issuing,DC=corp,DC=company,DC=lan
[22/Mar/2012:13:13:33 -0500] conn=34347 op=-1 msgId=-1 - SSL client bound as uid=userid,ou=employees,o=company
[22/Mar/2012:13:13:33 -0500] conn=34347 op=0 msgId=1 - BIND dn="" method=sasl version=3 mech=EXTERNAL
When adding the usercertificate attribute to the ID I used the following LDIF:
version: 1
dn: uid=userid,ou=employees,o=company
changetype: modify
replace: userCertificate
usercertificate: < file:///home/user/Certs/usercert.bin
the file was a binary encoded certificate file.
Here is the part that I don't understand when I do a search (or LDIF export) of the user object with the certificate it just returns a short base64 encoded string. when I decode this string, it is just the literal string of "< file:///home/user/Certs/usercert.bin".
So it appears that the certificate has not been stored on the user object in binary, and yet the certificate authentication still works. The file mentioned, does not exist on the LDAP server (the cert was loaded from another server), so there is no way that it is reading the cert from the file.
Anyone have any idea what is going on here? And why certificate auth works, when there appears to be not cert stored in LDAP?
If by chance this is how it is all suppose to work, then how do I go about backing up the usercertificate attribute when I do my LDAP data backups?
Thanks
Brian

Cyril,
Thanks for the reply.
I believe I am doing both types of certificate authentication, you are describing. My issue is that when I perform the steps to store the PEM formatted cert into the directory server, rather than storing a binary value of the cert, it appears to be storing the path to the file I attempted to import. The odd part is that I can still authenticate even after this is done.
I tried to post as much info as I could before without posting any sensitive data, I'll try and expand on that below.
Here is my documentation of the steps taken to configure the server and setup a user, for what I believe to be certificate based authentication, where the user is authenticated solely on the certificate that they provide (no password is sent).
1. Server must be running SSL, all connections for Certificate Auth are done over SSL (just a note)
2. From the DSCC
----a. Directory Servers Tab -> Servers Tab -> Click Server Name
----b. Security Tab -> General Tab
----c. In "Client Authentication" section, select:
--------i. LDAP Settings: "Allow Certificate-Based Client Authentication"
--------ii. This should be the default setting.
3. On the directory server setup the /ldap/dsInst/alias/certmap.conf file:
----a. certmap default default
----default:DNComps
----default:FilterComps uid,cn
4. restart the directory server
5. Do the following to setup the user who will be connecting. On their unix account (or similar)
----a. Create a directory to hold the certDB
--------i. mkdir certdb
----b. Create a CertDB
--------i. /ldap/dsee7/bin/certutil -N -d certdb
------------1) Enter a password when prompted
----c. Import the CA cert
--------i. /ldap/dsee7/bin/certutil -A -n "OurRootCA" -t "C,," -a -I ~/OurRootCA.cer -d certdb
----d. Create a cert request
--------i. /ldap/dsee7/bin/certutil -R -s "cn=userid,ou=company,l=city,st=state,c=US" -a -g 2048 -d certdb
----e. Send the cert request to the PKI Team to generate a user cert
----f. Take the text of the generated cert & save it to a file
----g. Import the new cert into your certdb
--------i. /ldap/dsee7/bin/certutil -A -n "certname" -t "u,," -a -i certfile.cer -d certdb
----h. Create a binary version of cert
--------i. /ldap/dsee7/bin/certutil -L -n "certname" -d certdb -r > userid.bin
----i. Add the binary cert to the user's LDAP entry (version: 1 must be included - I read this in a doc somewhere, but it doesn't seem to matter)
--------i. ldapmodify
------------1) ldapmodify -h host -D "cn=directory manager" -w password -ac
------------2)
------------version: 1
------------dn: uid=userid,ou=employees,o=company
------------sn: Service Account
------------givenName: userid
------------uid: userid
------------description: Service Account for LDAP
------------objectClass: top
------------objectClass: person
------------objectClass: organizationalPerson
------------objectClass: inetorgperson
------------cn: Service Account
------------userpassword: password
------------usercertificate: < file:///home/userid/Certs/userid.bin
------------nsLookThroughLimit: -1
------------nsSizeLimit: -1
------------nsTimeLimit: 180
After doing this setup I am able to perform a search using the certificate:
ldapsearch -h host -p 1636 -b "o=company" -N "certname" -Z -W CERTDBPASSWORD -P certdb/cert8.db "(uid=anotherID)"
This search is successful, and I can see it logged, as having been a certificate based authentication:
[23/Mar/2012:13:25:20 -0500] conn=44605 op=-1 msgId=-1 - fd=136 slot=136 LDAPS connection from x.x.x.x:53574 to x.x.x.x
[23/Mar/2012:13:25:20 -0500] conn=44605 op=-1 msgId=-1 - SSL 128-bit RC4; client CN=userid,OU=company,L=city,ST=state,C=US; issuer CN=issuer,DC=corp,DC=company,DC=lan
[23/Mar/2012:13:25:20 -0500] conn=44605 op=-1 msgId=-1 - SSL client bound as uid=userid,ou=employees,o=company
[23/Mar/2012:13:25:20 -0500] conn=44605 op=0 msgId=1 - BIND dn="" method=sasl version=3 mech=EXTERNAL
If I understand correctly that would be using the part 2 of your explanation as using the binary encoded PEM to authenticate the user. If I am not understanding that corretly please let me know.
Now the part that I am really not getting is that the usercertificate that is stored on the ID is as below:
dn: uid=userid,ou=employees,o=company
usercertificate;binary:: PCBmaWxlOi8vL2hvbWUvdXNlcmlkL0NlcnRzL3VzZXJpZC5iaW4
which decodes as: < file:///home/userid/Certs/userid.bin
So I'm still unclear as to what is going on here, or what I've done wrong. Have I set this up incorrectly such that Part 2 as you described it is not what I have setup above? Or am I missunderstanding part 2 entirely?
Thanks
Brian
Edited by: BrianS on Mar 23, 2012 12:14 PM
Just adding ---- to keep my instruction steps indented.

Certificate based authentication for Exchange ActiveSync in Windows 8.* Mail app

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for