Ansible Role - Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

Role to provision and manage one or multiple PKI's on the target server.

The EasyRSA script is used as 'backend' to simplify the automation process.

Molecule Logs: Short, Full

Tested:

• Debian 11

---

Install

# latest
ansible-galaxy role install git+https://github.com/ansibleguy/infra_pki

# from galaxy
ansible-galaxy install ansibleguy.infra_pki

# or to custom role-path
ansible-galaxy install ansibleguy.infra_pki --roles-path ./roles

# install dependencies
ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yml

---

Advertisement

• Need professional support using Ansible? Contact us:

  E-Mail: [email protected]

  Tel: +43 3115 40 900 0

  Web: EN | DE

  Language: German or English

• You want a simple Ansible GUI?

  Check-out this Ansible WebUI

---

Usage

Config

Define the config as needed:

Example

You can find a more detailed example here: Example

Minimal setup

pki:
  crl_distribution:
    domain: 'crl.ansibleguy.net'

  instances:
    root:
      pwd_ca: !vault |
        $ANSIBLE_VAULT;1.1;AES256
        ...

      sub_cas:
        main:
          pwd_ca: !vault |
            $ANSIBLE_VAULT;1.1;AES256
            ...

          certs:
            server:  # server certificates
              ansibleguy_net:
                cn: 'AnsibleGuy Website'
                san:
                  dns: ['www.ansibleguy.net', 'ansibleguy.net']
                  ip: '135.181.170.217'
                  uri: 'https://www-ansibleguy.net'

            client:  # client certificates
              workstation1:
                cn: 'AnsibleGuy Workstation'

You might want to use 'ansible-vault' to encrypt your passwords:

ansible-vault encrypt_string

Execution

Run the playbook:

ansible-playbook -K -D -i inventory/hosts.yml playbook_pki.yml

There is also an 'entrypoint' for managing single certificates - that can be useful if they are automagically managed by other roles.

# to run it interactively
ansible-playbook -K -D -i inventory/hosts.yml playbook_single_cert.yml

There are also some useful tags available:

• instances => skip basic tasks but process all PKI-instances (RootCA's)
• subcas => skip basic and instance (RootCA) tasks but process all SubCA tasks
• certs => only process task related to managing certificates
• certs_create => create non-existent certificates
• certs_renew => renew certificates that have the state 'renewed' set
• certs_revoke => revoke certificates that have the state 'revoked' or 'absent' set

To debug errors - you can set the 'debug' variable at runtime:

# WARNING: Will log passwords!
ansible-playbook -K -D -i inventory/hosts.yml playbook.yml -e debug=yes

Note: --check mode is not supported by this role as it heavily depends on scripted command-tasks.

---

Functionality

• Package installation

  • OpenSSL

• Configuration

  • Usage of a group to allow read-only access to public-keys

  • Default config:

    • Paths:
      • PKI base: '/var/local/lib/pki'
      • Script: '/usr/local/sbin/easyrsa'
    • PKI user: 'pki'
    • Read-only group: 'pki_read'
    • EasyRSA vars:
      • Expiration:
        • Root-CA: 20 years
        • Sub-CA: 15 years
        • Certificates: 3 years
      • Digest:
        • Root-CA: sha512
        • Sub-CA/Certificates: sha256
      • Algorithm: rsa
      • Key size: 4096
    • Certificates:
      • Don't password-encrypt certificate private-keys
      • Export formats:
        • pkcs12 (private/.p12)
        • certificate chain (issued/.chain.crt)

  • Default opt-ins:

    • Adding dedicated PKI-user and read-only group
    • Saving CA/Sub-CA/Certificate passwords to files for easier automation
      • See the information below for alternatives
    • Installation and configuration of a Nginx webserver to server CRL's and CA-PublicKey's (not yet implemented)

  • Default opt-outs:

    • Purging of orphaned (existing but not configured) certificates
    • Encryption of certificate private-keys (non CA/Sub-CA)

---

Info

• Note: Most of the role's functionality can be opted in or out.

  For all available options - see the default-config located in the main defaults-file!

• Info: To make sure the role config 'behaves' as expected - it tested by this role using molecule!

  Per example: The certificate-attributes, file- & directory-permissions & -ownership are checked after generating multiple certificates using multiple Root- & Sub-CA's.

  See Verification Tests

• Warning: Not every setting/variable you provide will be checked for validity. Bad config might break the role!

• Note: If you want to read more about PKI's and certificates:

  • The EasyRSA project has a nice documentation
  • For (x509) certificates check out the OpenSSL documentation.
  • If you want to read a good explanation of how 'keyUsage' and 'extendedKeyUsage' are to be used - check out this StackExchange answer: LINK
  • If you want to know how to manually create a PKI/SubCA's using EasyRSA - check out @QueuingKoala's clean example on how to do that: GitHub Gist

• Warning: For gained security against CA-compromise you should:

  1. Make sure all your needed Sub-CA's are created by the role

  2. Copy the CA private-key (${path_base}/ca/private/ca.key) to an offline medium (keep redundancy in mind)

  3. Save the password you used to initialize the CA (not on the same medium)

  4. Remove the ca.key file from your Online-system using a 'secure-deletion' tool like 'shred':

     shred -vzu -n10 ca.key

• Note: You have multiple options to supply the CA/Sub-CA/Certificate passwords:

  • if 'save_passwords' is set to true - the saved password will be retrieved after the CA is initialized
  • as inventory variable (ansible-vault encrypted to be decrypted at runtime)
  • --extra-vars at runtime
  • if no password was set, the role will prompt for one at runtime

• Note: Certificate variables you set on:

  • global level will be inherited by all instances and their sub-ca's
  • instance-level will be inherited by its sub-ca's
  • specific config on instance/subca level will always override the inherited one

• Note: You can find scripts for automated certificate-expiration monitoring that can be integrated with monitoring systems like Zabbix at files/usr/local/bin/monitoring.

• Warning: The CRL-Distribution settings CANNOT BE CHANGED easily.

  All existing certificates would have to be re-generated once the settings are changed.

• Note: The 'cert_expire' variable of the root-ca will set the runtime of the sub-ca's!

• Note: Passwords used for CA/Sub-CA/Certificate encryption are checked for complexity rules:

  • min. 8 characters long
  • must contain
    • number
    • uppercase letter
    • lowercase letter

• Note: Certificates states can be set to either:

  • 'present' or 'created' to make sure a certificate exists
  • 'absent' or 'revoked' to make sure a certificate does not exist
  • 'renewed' to renew a certificate