CZERTAINLY Core

This repository is part of the commercial open source project CZERTAINLY. You can find more information about the project at CZERTAINLY repository, including the contribution guide.

Core provides the basic functionality for the CZERTAINLY platform. It implements the logic for the certificate lifecycle management and handles all related tasks. You can think about it as a brain of the CZERTAINLY platform.

There are 2 types of communication that the Core is responsible for:

• client requesting management operations on top of certificates
• Connector that provides with the functionality for specific technologies

Core is performing consistent operation on top of the certificates. The management of certificates is abstracted through CZERTAINLY objects, for example:

Object	Short description
Connector	Provides with the functionality for specific technologies (defined by Function Group and supported Kinds)
Credential	Credential of various types to be used by Connectors and other objects
Authority	Representing certification authority access
RA Profile	Configuration of the service for certificate lifecycle management (abstraction of Attributes for specific certificate type, including available APIs)
Discovery	Schedule discovery process for searching of certificates in various sources
Certificate	Certificate consisting of Attributes and related metadata
Entity	Represents the entity that is can use the certificates
Location	Location on the Entity where is certificate stored
Group	Grouping of different certificates based on different requirements
Compliance Profile	Matching rules for the certificate to assess compliance

RA profile

RA profile is one of the main concepts of the Core. RA profile represents the certificate management service containing all specific Attributes and configuration you need for specific Certificate and use-case, which may be for example web server certificate, authentication certificates, etc.

Each Certificate type and use-case may have its own technical, business, and compliance requirements. RA profile is the abstraction of these requirements.

The relation between RA profile and other objects may be defined according the following scheme:

Authority----------------\
                          \
Certificate attributes----\\           /----certificate
                           \\         /
Compliance profile---------\\\       //-----certificate
                            RA profile
Approval profile-----------///       \\-----certificate
                           //         \
Interfaces----------------//           \----certificate
                          /
Authorization------------/

For more information, refer to the CZERTAINLY documentation.

Certificate inventory

Certificate inventory contains all Certificates that were discovered or were imported to the platform. Each Certificate provides comprehensive and consistent information which can be managed.

Lifecycle operations

The following basic lifecycle operations are supported for each Certificate:

• issue
• renew
• revoke

Operations can be automated by the Core, but also can be performed manually by the user.

Certificate relations

Certificate has relations to other objects that helps with the management and automation of the Certificate lifecycle:

Location----------\
                   \
Group--------------\\
                    certificate-------RA profile
Discovery----------//
                   /
Owner-------------/

For more information, refer to the CZERTAINLY documentation.

Protocol support

Core support the following protocols for certificate management:

• ACME

Docker container

Core is provided as a Docker container. Use the 3keycompany/czertainly-core:tagname to pull the required image from the repository. It can be configured using the following environment variables:

Variable	Description	Required	Default value
JDBC_URL	JDBC URL for database access	Yes	N/A
JDBC_USERNAME	Username to access the database	Yes	N/A
JDBC_PASSWORD	Password to access the database	Yes	N/A
DB_SCHEMA	Database schema to use	No	ejbca
PORT	Port where the service is exposed	No	8080
HEADER_NAME	Name of the header where the certificate of the client can be found	No	X-APP-CERTIFICATE
HEADER_ENABLED	True if the certificate should be get from the header	Yes	N/A
TS_PASSWORD	Password for the trusted certificate store	Yes	Any

Proxy settings

You may need to configure proxy to allow Core to communicate with external systems. To enable proxy, use the following environment variables for docker container:

Variable	Description	Required	Default value
HTTP_PROXY	The proxy URL to use for http connections. Format: <protocol>://<proxy_host>:<proxy_port> or <protocol>://<user>:<password>@<proxy_host>:<proxy_port>	No	N/A
HTTPS_PROXY	The proxy URL to use for https connections. Format: <protocol>://<proxy_host>:<proxy_port> or <protocol>://<user>:<password>@<proxy_host>:<proxy_port>	No	N/A
NO_PROXY	A comma-separated list of host names that shouldn't go through any proxy	No	N/A

Example values:

• HTTP_PROXY=http://user:password@proxy.example.com:3128
• HTTPS_PROXY=http://user:password@proxy.example.com:3128
• NO_PROXY=localhost,127.0.0.1,0.0.0.0,10.0.0.0/8,cattle-system.svc,.svc,.cluster.local,my-domain.local

Monitoring and reporting

For monitoring and reporting, you can use the information provided by the Core. We strongly recommend trying the Operator UI that is additional component of the CZERTAINLY platform.