Contents

1   Introduction

This document describes how to install or renew a node credential manually with Certificate Signing Request (CSR), PKCS#10.

As shown in Figure 1, the installation or renewal consists of the following main steps:

1. Enrollment data preparation in the Managed Element (ME).
2. CSR file creation in the ME.
3. Transferring the CSR file from the ME to an external host with the SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).
4. Submitting the CSR file from the external host to an external Certification Authority (CA) and requesting the CA to generate a certificate file in Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) or Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER) format.
5. Certificate file creation in the CA.
6. Receiving the certificate file from the CA.

   Note:  

   The procedures for sending the CSR file to the CA, creating the certificate at the CA, and receiving the certificate file from the CA are outside the scope of this document. The procedures can depend on the CA.

   
   
7. Certificate file installation in the ME. During this step, the ME copies the certificate file to the ME with the SFTP and installs it.

1.1   Prerequisites

This section describes the prerequisites, which must be fulfilled before using the procedure.

1.1.1   Conditions

The following conditions must apply:

• The user has the System Security Administrator role.
• A user account for accessing the ME with the SFTP and downloading the CSR file from the ME is available.

  In this document, the corresponding username is me_user1.

• The address, username, and password for the SFTP server in the external host are known.

  In this document, the username is hostuser1 and the password is hostuser1pw in host1.

• The name and path to the certificate file in host1 are known.

  In this document, the external host is host1, the username is hostuser1, and the password is hostuser1pw. The certificate file node06stNodeCredential1.pem is stored in host1 in the home directory for hostuser1.

• The user has read access to the certificate file in the external host to be able to download it to the ME with the SFTP.
• The CA used for certificates and the procedures for requesting certificates from the CA are known.
• The fingerprint of the certificate file (PEM or DER file) has been provided by the CA administrator.

  In this document, the fingerprint is ba:41:ac:4f:b3:00:10:98:28:47:36:b1:eb:d9:66:33:69:05:7d:c2.

• For a renewal, the NodeCredential Managed Object (MO) to select is known.
• An Ericsson Command-Line Interface (ECLI) session in Exec mode is in progress.

2   Procedure

Enrollment Data Preparation in ME

To install or renew a node credential:

1. Navigate to the CertM MO, for example:

   >dn ManagedElement=NODE06ST,SystemFunctions=1,SecM=1,CertM=1

2. Select the appropriate action:

   Installation: Proceed with Step 3.

   Renewal: Proceed with Step 7.

3. Enter Config mode:

   (CertM=1)>configure

4. Create a NodeCredential MO:

   (config-CertM=1)>NodeCredential=1

5. Specify the X.501 Distinguished Name (DN) name to be used in the subject field of the requested certificate, for example:

   (config-NodeCredential=1)subjectName="C=SE,O=Ericsson,CN=node06st.ericsson.com"

   Note:  

   The only mandatory Relative Distinguished Name (RDN) required in the DN is the Common Name (CN).

   The value CN=node06st.ericsson.com is an example value. From a certificate syntax point of view, also other values such as CN=NODE06ST are valid. The value that is to be configured in the CN depends on the security policy in the organization for which the ME is installed. It also depends on the information the peer expects to receive in a certificate from the ME when the peer tries to connect to the ME using the service for which this node credential is used.

   
   
6. Proceed with Step 9.
7. Select the existing NodeCredential MO:

   (CertM=1)>NodeCredential=1

8. Enter Config mode:

   (NodeCredential=1)>configure

9. Select the appropriate key type and length, for example, RSA_2048 that corresponds to 2048-bit long key generated for the RSA algorithm:

   (config-NodeCredential=1)keyInfo=_2048

10. Commit the changes:

    (config-NodeCredential=1)commit

CSR File Creation in ME

11. Start the enrollment by creating a CSR file in the given local Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). The simplest case is to provide only the filename, for example:

    (NodeCredential=1)>startOfflineCsrEnrollment --uri node06stNodeCredential1.csr

    The system returns true when successfully triggered else false.

    Starting the enrollment creates the CSR file in the directory referred to by read-only attribute localFileStorePath in the CertM MO, namely directory certificates.

Transferring CSR File from ME with SFTP

The CSR file is copied from the ME to the external host (host1). In the example, the user starts from the shell in host1, logs in with the SFTP to the ME using username me_user1, and retrieves the CSR file from the ME to host1 with SFTP operation get.

12. Open an SFTP session from the external host to the ME, for example:

    shell$ sftp me_user1@node06st

13. Navigate to the folder containing the file, for example:

    >cd certificates

14. Copy the CSR file from the ME by using SFTP operation get and specifying the full filename, for example:

    sftp>get node06stNodeCredential1.csr

15. Exit the SFTP session:

    sftp>exit

Certificate File Creation in CA

The procedures for sending the CSR file to the CA, creating the certificate at CA, and receiving the certificate file from the CA are outside the scope of this document. The procedures can depend on the CA.

For the scope of this document, it is sufficient to assume that the CSR file copied with the SFTP to host1 can be sent further to the CA for signing, and that the certificate file received from the CA is to be copied to host1, which is directly accessible from the ME with the SFTP.

Certificate File Installation in ME

The certificate file received from the CA is copied to the ME. This is done with an MO action that downloads the file to the ME with the SFTP from host1 and installs it to the ME.

16. Navigate to the CertM MO, for example:

    >dn ManagedElement=NODE06ST,SystemFunctions=1,SecM=1,CertM=1

17. Select the node credential:

    (CertM=1)>NodeCredential=1

18. Install the certificate in the same NodeCredential MO where the corresponding CSR file was created:

    (NodeCredential=1)>installCredentialFromUri --uri sftp://hostuser1@host1/home/hostuser1/node06stNodeCredential1.pem --uriPassword hostuser1pw --fingerprint ba:41:ac:4f:b3:00:10:98:28:47:36:b1:eb:d9:66:33:69:05:7d:c2

    The credential password is not needed as the certificate is installed in PEM or DER format (option --credentialPassword is not used).

    The fingerprint of file node06stNodeCredential1.pem is checked. The fingerprint must be entered in the defined format for the algorithm that the ME supports for calculating the fingerprint. The supported format for fingerprint can be read from the node with MO action (CertMCapabilities=1)>show fingerprintSupport. For more information on fingerprint, refer to Generate Fingerprint for File.

    Note:  

    The fingerprint is calculated from the whole file, not only from the certificate it contains.

    
    

    The credential installation automatically deleted file node06stNodeCredential1.pem from directory certificates.

    The system returns true when successfully triggered else false.

19. Check that the certificate installation has been completed successfully:

    (NodeCredential=1)>show enrollmentProgress

    result=SUCCESS resultInfo="installed from the certificate file"

    If an error occurs during the execution of the action, attribute enrollmentProgress shows result=FAILURE and resultInfo shows the cause of the failure.