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 and related objects
Connector that provides with the functionality for specific technologies

The management of certificates and cryptographic keys is abstracted through CZERTAINLY objects called Profiles, such as:

RA Profile - configuration of the service for certificate lifecycle management
Token Profile - configuration of the cryptographic service and management of the keys
Compliance Profile - compliance requirements for the certificates and related objects

For more information, refer to the CZERTAINLY documentation.

Access Control

Core access control requires the following to run:

CZERTAINLY-Auth service to manage users, roles, permission. The URL of the Auth service can be configured using AUTH_SERVICE_BASE_URL environment variable.
OPA (Open Policy Agent) evaluating policies and providing decisions about authorization. The OPA service URL can be confgiured using OPA_BASE_URL environment variable.
OPA policies bundles that are loaded into OPA service and define the rules to be evaluated. The policies are defined in CZERTAINLY-Auth-OPA-Policies

Warning The Core will fail to run when Auth or OPA is missing.

Note OPA can run on the same system with the Core or it can be hosted externally. To improve the performance of the permissions evaluation it is typically running on the same host as Core (e.g. as a sidecar).

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:

create (request)
issue
renew
rekey
revoke

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

Cryptographic key inventory

Key inventory contains all Keys that are available for usage. Each Key provides comprehensive and consistent information which can be managed through the Token Profile.

Experimental support for PQC algorithms

Core supports the following PQC algorithms: FALCON, CRYSTALS-Dilithium, SPHINCS+. The support is experimental and it is not recommended to use it in production as the PQC algorithms are still in the development and not fully standardized.

Protocol support

Core support the following protocols for certificate management:

ACME
SCEP (with optional Intune support)

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	Default value
`JDBC_URL`	JDBC URL for database access	`N/A`
`JDBC_USERNAME`	Username to access the database	`N/A`
`JDBC_PASSWORD`	Password to access the database	`N/A`
`DB_SCHEMA`	Database schema to use	`core`
`PORT`	Port where the service is exposed	`8080`
`HEADER_NAME`	Name of the header where the certificate of the client can be found	`X-APP-CERTIFICATE`
`HEADER_ENABLED`	True if the certificate should be get from the header	`N/A`
`TS_PASSWORD`	Password for the trusted certificate store	`N/A`
`OPA_BASE_URL`	Base URL of the Open Policy Agent	`N/A`
`AUTH_SERVICE_BASE_URL`	Base URL of the authentication service	`N/A`
`AUTH_TOKEN_HEADER_NAME`	Name of the header for the JSON ID content	`X-USERINFO`
`AUDITLOG_ENABLED`	Audit log enable / disable	`false`
`SCHEDULED_TASKS_ENABLED`	Scheduled certificate status update enable / disable	`true`
`JAVA_OPTS`	Customize Java system properties for running application	`N/A`
`TRUSTED_CERTIFICATES`	List of PEM encoded additional trusted certificates	`N/A`
`SCHEDULER_BASE_URL`	Base URL of the scheduler service	`N/A`
`RABBITMQ_HOST`	RabbitMQ messaging host	`N/A`
`RABBITMQ_PORT`	RabbitMQ messaging port	`5672`
`RABBITMQ_USERNAME`	RabbitMQ messaging username	`N/A`
`RABBITMQ_PASSWORD`	RabbitMQ messaging password	`N/A`
`RABBITMQ_VHOST`	RabbitMQ messaging virtual host	`czertainly`

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	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>`	`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>`	`N/A`
`NO_PROXY`	A comma-separated list of host names that shouldn't go through any proxy	`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

3KeyCompany / CZERTAINLY-Core