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OSCARS Message Security

  1. OSCARS Message Security
      1. Overview
      2. Configuration Files
      3. Keystore files
      4. Class Files
      5. Keystore Management Tools
      6. Server side
      7. Client side

Overview

The OSCARS Web pages and Web Services are run within a Tomcat container which uses SSL connections to encrypt all messages. The OSCARS Web Service interface is run as an axis2 service within the Tomcat container that has message signing implemented by the Apache Rampart software. The SSL connection assures the user that he is connecting to a legitimate OSCARS server, and encrypts all data that passes between the client and the server. The message signing assures the OSCARS service that the request came from an authenticated user that can be matched against its list of authorized users. Signed messages are required rather than SSL client authentication, because there may be more than one host machine between the client and the OSCARS service. Signed messages assure end-to-end authentication, where SSL does only point-to-point authentication.

The client needs to have access to a private key and its matching X509 certificate for message signing, and the the X509 certificate chain of the server that it is contacting. The Tomcat server needs access to a private key and X509 certificate to identify itself to the client and to encrypt the SSL connection. The OSCARS service needs a private key and X509 certificate to sign responses and the X509 certificates of the CAs (Certificate Authority) that issued users certificate in order to authenticate the message signature.

There is an additional complication presented by the interdomain architecture. The OSCARS and OSCARSNotify servers in each domain will also act as a client when information about a reservation needs to be forwarded to an adjacent domain. Thus on an OSCARS server host there will be both server and client configurations.

Since all of the code is in Java, the private keys and certificates are kept in Java keystore files, and the configuration information is kept in properties files.

The rampart configuration file and keystore files contain information that is private to a domain or user. The source code available from our code repository includes samples of these files in the conf/examples directory. They need to be edited to add the host and server certificates and user keys from your own site.

Configuration Files

Keystore files

Class Files

Keystore Management Tools


keytool: available as part of the Java security package
This is a general purpose keystore management program. use keytool -h for a complete list of functions. It can be used to create a new self-signed keyEntry, or to export a certificate signing request for the new entries certificate to be sent to a CA for signing, and then import the signed certificate back to the keyEntry. It can also import a CA certificate to a trustedCertEntry,  change the keystore password and list the contents of a keystore. 

tools/utils commands.
These commands are wrappers to keytool that operate on either of ${CATALINA_HOME}/shared/classes/repo/{OSCARS.jks,ssl-keystore}. They take no arguments and prompt for the keystore, the alias you want to see or modify and find the keystore password from the  rampConfig.xml file.
idc-addcert: creates a new keyEntry, either with a signed or unsigned
certificate, or imports a trusted CA certificate.
idc-certdel: deletes a trustedCertEntry or keyEntry from a keystore
idc-export: exports a pem format X.509 certificate from either a trustedCertEntry or keyEntry.
idc-signreq: exports a certificate signing request for a keyEntry that currently contains a self-signed certificate.
idc-certview: views the certificate associated with either a keyEntry or a TrustedCert entry.
idc-kspasswd: Changes the OSCARS.jks keystore password.

tools/utils/copyKey:
Used to copy a keyEntry from one keystore to another. May be useful when upgrading to a new release or when importing a keyEntry from an externally obtained pkcs12 file.

copyKey.sh -a <alias of keyEntry>
[-inpkcs12 <filename of input keyStore>  | -injks
<filename of input keyStore> ]
-out <filename of output keystore>

It will prompt for the password of the input keystore, the password of the keyEntry in the input keystore and the password for the output key store. Normally the password of a keyEntry is the same the keystore. If this is the case just reply with a CR. If the -inpkcs12 option is used the entry will be imported from a pkcs12 file. If -injks is used it will be imported from another jks keystore.


Server side


Services.xml comes from conf/axis-tomcat/oscars-services.xml, notify-services.xml and is installed in the META-INF directory of the respective aar. It inlcudes rampConfig.xml which defines the rampart specific ws-policy including the name of the keystore file, user and password. RampConfig.xml and the keystore file (OSCARS.jks) are installed at ${catalina_home}/shared/classes/repo and are domain specific. The ones for ESnet are checked into https://oscars.es.net/esnet/domain/server. The ant target "setupServer" will copy them from [conf/axis-tomcat|$DOMAIN_HOME/server] into ${catalina_home}/shared/classes/repo. Examples of these files can be found in conf/axis2-tomcat. OSCARS.jks needs trustedCertEntries for all the authorized users' certificate issuers to validate request messages and a keyEntry for the service to sign response messages.

Tomcat needs the keystore referenced in ${catalina.home}/conf/server.xml to do server-side ssl.
If no keystoreFile entry is specified in the https connector element of server.xml, the file ~/.keystore is used. If no keystorePass entry is specified the password is "changeit".
On the oscars servers the keystoreFile element is specified as /root/.keystore. The keystore contains a keyEntry for the oscars/oscars.es.net cert/key with alias tomcat and the trustedCertEntries for the CAs in its certificate chain.


Client side

Needs axis2.xml, rampConfig.xml and OSCARS.jks files to generate signed messages.

The OSCARS[Notify] wsdl now specifies most of the message security properties. That information is included in the OSCARS[Notify]Stub.java by wsdl2java. rampConfig.xml specifies the Rampart specific message security properties, e.g. the location of the keystore to use, the user alias and password. axis2.xml imports rampConfig.xml

OSCARS.jks has the keyEntry for the user who will be signing messages and the trustedCertEntries for the issuers who signed the client cert and the certs of the OSCARS service that he is contacting. Keytool can be used to create a keyEntry and to enter trustedCertEntries. tools/utils/copyKey.sh can be used to copy a keyEntry from an existing

Needs ssl-keystore.jks to hold the trustedCertEntries for the ssl connection to the Tomcat server. The name and the password for this file are hard-coded into net.es.oscars.client.security.KeyManagement. Use keytool to add a trustedCertEntry for this certificate.

The default ant task in examples/javaClients/build.xml will create and populate a repo directory with all these pieces. The user may will need to edit rampConfig.xml to chose a a user to sign the message and may want to add additional keyEntries to OSCARS.jks.
See keytool.html for instructions on how to do this.