SpaceTeddy
May 16th, 2008, 02:01 PM
This Document describes (possibly the worst) way of automating the process of revoking vulernable OpenVPN keys and distributing replacement ones.
Before you start reading thing, let me poing out that:
- i am painfully aware that a broken certificate should NOT be used to issue a new one !
- this solution sucks big time when it comes to reliability ( i can think of about a hundred things that could go wrong with this)
- That the scripts provided will ONLY, and ONLY work with windows clients under a a lot of assumptions.
So, if anyone see's a better way of dealing with this, please don't hesitate to tell me. If need be, i will patch the scripts and also test them.
Also, i have NOT tested these scripts in a life enviroment yet. They are only tested with a testbed of three windows clients and one debian server (yes, Debian)
Ok - now that the disclaimers and concerns are said, here is what i accomplished to get working.
Upon connection of a client to the server, the server will run a script which does the following things:
check if the client certificate is "bad"
if the certificate is bad, try to connect to the remote computer via the vpn (this way i don't have to worry about firewalls, nat, etc)
if the connection succeeds try to mount the C$ share of the client into the server
if the mount succeeds, check if the key and crt file can be found on the client
if the files are found, revoke the client certificate, copy the "old" keys to a different place to keep them (why i don't know, i just want to keep them for now) and generate a new certificate for the client with the same filename and the same commonname
copy the files back to the client.
When the client connects the next time, it will use the new certificate. Also, the old one will be revoked by then.
Packages you need for doing this:
smbclient
smbfs
openssl
sudo
perl
Setup:
copy the three supplied scripts into the folder /etc/openvpn/script (any other folder can be chosen - but then the scripts will need to be changed aswell)
edit the scripts variables to match your enviroment. make sure that ALL variables are set properly
allow your openvpn user (for me it's nobody) to execute the checkclient.pl as root (i know, security risk - But it's the only way i could figure out how to do it. suggestions welcome for improvements)
make sure your crl.pem is set right (this was a major problem for me)
create a folder "revoked" in your keys dir (this is where the script will move the revoked certificates)
add the line
commonName_default = $ENV::KEY_COMMONNAME to your easy-rsa's openssl.cnf for enabling batch mode of certificate generation.
add the client-connect directive to your openvpn configuration and point it to the hook.pl
make sure your clients all run windows and have the C$ share enabled for login. If that is not the case, you will need to modify the fixclient.pl to mount the remote drive some other way.
TEST YOUR SETUP WITH A DUMMY VPN BEFORE YOU APPLY IT
That is pretty much it.
I have left specific instructions on what commands to run out on purpose. If you cannot follow the above steps - ask for help, figure out what exactly the scripts do or change the keys manually. This is a very risky buisness and too many things are unknown to provide specific intructions...
again, any suggestions, help, pointers are welcome. Also, if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask :) I know the scripts are far from perfect.
Before you start reading thing, let me poing out that:
- i am painfully aware that a broken certificate should NOT be used to issue a new one !
- this solution sucks big time when it comes to reliability ( i can think of about a hundred things that could go wrong with this)
- That the scripts provided will ONLY, and ONLY work with windows clients under a a lot of assumptions.
So, if anyone see's a better way of dealing with this, please don't hesitate to tell me. If need be, i will patch the scripts and also test them.
Also, i have NOT tested these scripts in a life enviroment yet. They are only tested with a testbed of three windows clients and one debian server (yes, Debian)
Ok - now that the disclaimers and concerns are said, here is what i accomplished to get working.
Upon connection of a client to the server, the server will run a script which does the following things:
check if the client certificate is "bad"
if the certificate is bad, try to connect to the remote computer via the vpn (this way i don't have to worry about firewalls, nat, etc)
if the connection succeeds try to mount the C$ share of the client into the server
if the mount succeeds, check if the key and crt file can be found on the client
if the files are found, revoke the client certificate, copy the "old" keys to a different place to keep them (why i don't know, i just want to keep them for now) and generate a new certificate for the client with the same filename and the same commonname
copy the files back to the client.
When the client connects the next time, it will use the new certificate. Also, the old one will be revoked by then.
Packages you need for doing this:
smbclient
smbfs
openssl
sudo
perl
Setup:
copy the three supplied scripts into the folder /etc/openvpn/script (any other folder can be chosen - but then the scripts will need to be changed aswell)
edit the scripts variables to match your enviroment. make sure that ALL variables are set properly
allow your openvpn user (for me it's nobody) to execute the checkclient.pl as root (i know, security risk - But it's the only way i could figure out how to do it. suggestions welcome for improvements)
make sure your crl.pem is set right (this was a major problem for me)
create a folder "revoked" in your keys dir (this is where the script will move the revoked certificates)
add the line
commonName_default = $ENV::KEY_COMMONNAME to your easy-rsa's openssl.cnf for enabling batch mode of certificate generation.
add the client-connect directive to your openvpn configuration and point it to the hook.pl
make sure your clients all run windows and have the C$ share enabled for login. If that is not the case, you will need to modify the fixclient.pl to mount the remote drive some other way.
TEST YOUR SETUP WITH A DUMMY VPN BEFORE YOU APPLY IT
That is pretty much it.
I have left specific instructions on what commands to run out on purpose. If you cannot follow the above steps - ask for help, figure out what exactly the scripts do or change the keys manually. This is a very risky buisness and too many things are unknown to provide specific intructions...
again, any suggestions, help, pointers are welcome. Also, if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask :) I know the scripts are far from perfect.