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Manually Configuring HTTPS for Web Service Certificate and Key Path

The following steps are intended for manually setting the certificate and key path for exacqVision Web Service versions 8.4 and higher.

NOTE: Wildcard certificates cannot be uploaded through the exacqVision Web Service administration interface. However, they may be used when manually configured.

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Products

  • exacqVision Web Service version 8.4 and above

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Steps

  1. Find the web service configuration file:
    • Windows:  C:\ProgramData\Webservice\conf\wfe.json
    • Linux:  /etc/webservice/wfe.json<br><br>
  2. Open this JSON configuration file with the text editor of your choice.
    • Windows: Open the text editor choosing, ‘Run as Administrator’
    • Linux: Run with sudo privileges when needed.<br><br>
  3. Within this file, locate the top-level key ‘webserver’.<br><br>
  4. One level underneath the ‘webserver’ key, locate the ‘tls’ key.
    • Note: The ‘tls’ key is optional. If it does not exist, create it as such:
          "webserver": {
              "listen": 80,
              "tls": {
              }<br><br>
  5. Inside the ‘tls’ key, modify the values for the following fields (creating keys for them if they are not already present)
    • “type”:  The literal string “external” (including the quotes)
    • “listen”:  The port on which you want the web service to conduct HTTPS traffic. The default HTTPS port is 443. Provide this value as a literal number without quotes.
    • “cert”:  The absolute path to your HTTPS certificate (surrounded in double-quote markers, e.g. “/home/admin/certificates/webservice.cert”)
    • “key”:  The absolute path to your HTTPS private key (surrounded in double-quote markers as well)

      If you have followed these steps correctly, the contents of webserver key section of the wfe.json should now look something like the following:
          "webserver": {
              "listen": 80,
              "tls": {
                 "listen": 443,
                 "cert": "path/to/your/cert",
                 "key": "path/to/your/key",
                 "type": "none"
              }<br><br>
  6. Save your changes.<br><br>
  7. Restart the exacqVision Web Service.

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Configuring SSL on an exacqVision Server for Active Directory/LDAP (Linux)

exacqVision 7.2 and higher:

Check the box labeled “Use SSL” on the “ActiveDirectory/LDAP” configuration page, then press “Apply”.

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exacqVision prior to 7.2:

This article contains procedures for configuring SSL on exacqVision servers so that you can make Active Directory operations more secure.

There are many ways to generate, install, and manage certificates in order to use SSL, but this document explains one simple option: exporting the trusted root certificate that already exists in your Active Directory domain and installing it on each exacqVision server.
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Export Trusted Root Certificate for Your Domain

  1. Log in to any Windows workstation that has already been added to your domain. The login account must have at least local admin permissions.
  2. Start the Microsoft Management Console (mmc.exe).
  3. If you haven’t already, add the Certificates snap-in:

    a) On the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap-In.
    b) Select Certificates and click Add.
    c) When prompted, select the option to manage certificates for your user account (instead of the service or computer account).
    d) Click Finish.
    e) Click OK to complete this step.
  4. Expand Certificates – Current User in the left pane.
  5. Expand Trusted Root Certification Authorities.
  6. Select the Certficates folder to display your workstation’s currently installed CA certificates. The Issued To field should contain something similar to mydomain-ROOT-CA, where mydomain is your domain name.
  7. Select that Issued To entry, right-click All Tasks, and select Export.
  8. In the Certificate Export Wizard, select the format choice of Base-64 encoded binary X.509 (.CER). Save it to a local .cer file that you can relocate later. You will then install this same certificate file on every exacqVision Server for which you intend to use SSL.

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Certificate Database Location on exacqVision Server

Whenever exacqVision Server attempts to connect to an Active Directory server, it creates the following files in the installation directory, if necessary:

cert8.db
key3.db
secmod.db
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Import Trusted Root Certificate into Each exacqVision Server

  1. On the exacqVision server, copy your trusted root certificate to the server’s installation directory at /usr/local/exacq/server.
  2. If you have not already verified your exacqVision Server’s LDAP configuration with SSL disabled, do this now. This will create your certificate database files if they do not exist already.
  3. Open a Terminal window and type the following:

    sudo openssl s_client -connect FQDN:636 -ssl3 | sed -ne “/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p” > ad.pem && sudo mv ad.pem /usr/local/exacq/server
    where FQDN is the fully qualified domain name of your Domain Controller.
  4. Press Enter twice to create the .pem file and move it to the Servers directory.
  5. Change to the exacqVision server’s directory with

    cd /usr/local/exacq/server
  6. Run the following two commands:

    sudo certutil -d . -A -t “C,C,C” -i MY_CERT_FILE -n adca

    where MY_CERT_FILE represents your trusted root certificate file; and

    sudo certutil -d . -A -t “u,u,u” -i ad.pem -n ad
  7. In a Terminal window, restart your exacqVision server with the following command:

    sudo service edvrserver restart
  8. On your exacqVision server, run exacqVision Client and open the Active Directory/LDAP tab. Select the SSL checkbox (the port should automatically change to 636), and then click Apply. Your exacqVision Server should then reconnect to your Active Directory domain controller.

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Configuring-SSL-on-an-exacqVision-Server-for-Active-Directory-LDAP-Linux.pdf
Categories
Knowledge Support Support exacqVision Server Categories Products

Configuring SSL on an exacqVision Server for Active Directory/LDAP (Windows)

exacqVision 7.2 and higher:

Check the box labeled “Use SSL” on the “ActiveDirectory/LDAP” configuration page, then press “Apply”.
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exacqVision prior to 7.2:

This article contains procedures for configuring SSL on exacqVision servers. These steps are necessary if you want Active Directory operations to be made more secure by use of SSL on the exacqVision server.

While there are a number of ways that you can generate, install, and manage certificates in order to use SSL, this document will only describe one of the easiest ways to do so. You can simply export the trusted root certificate that already exists in your Active Directory domain, install it on each of your exacqVision Servers, and thereby enable SSL for successful operations. This article will give you step-by-step instructions on how to do this.

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Export Trusted Root Certificate for Your Domain

  1. Log in to any Windows workstation that has already been added to your domain. You must have at least local admin permissions.
  2. Start the Microsoft Management Console (mmc.exe).
  3. If you haven’t already, add the Certificates snap-in:

    a) On the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap-In.
    b) Select Certificates and click Add.
    c) When prompted, select the option to manage certificates for your user account (instead of the service or computer account).
    d) Click Finish.
    e) Click OK to complete this step.
  4. Expand Certificates – Current User in the left pane.
  5. Expand Trusted Root Certification Authorities.
  6. Select the Certficates folder to display your workstation’s currently installed CA certificates. The Issued To field should contain something similar to mydomain-ROOT-CA, where mydomain is your domain name.
  7. Select that Issued To entry, and then right-click All Tasks and select Export.
  8. In the Certificate Export Wizard, select the format choice of Base-64 encoded binary X.509 (.CER). Save it to a local .cer file that you can relocate later. You will then install this same certificate file on every exacqVision Server for which you intend to use SSL.

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Certificate Database Location on exacqVision Server

Whenever exacqVision Server attempts to connect to an Active Directory server, it creates the following files in the installation directory, if necessary:

  • cert8.db
  • key3.db
  • secmod.db

In the exacqVision Server installation directory on any exacqVision Server, the following command shows all certificates, including all trusted root certificates, that you have made available to that exacqVision Server for connecting to the directory via SSL:

certutil -L -d .
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Import Trusted Root Certificate into Each exacqVision Server

  1. On the actual exacqVision Server, copy your trusted root certificate to the server’s installation directory.
  2. If you have not already verified your exacqVision Server’s LDAP configuration with SSL disabled, do this now. This will create your certificate database files if they do not already.
  3. From within the server’s installation directory, execute the following command as local admin:

certutil -A -n “my domain ca cert” -t “C,C,C” -a -i my_cert_file.cer -d .

where my_cert_file.cer represents your trusted root certificate file, and my domain ca cert represents the name by which you want this certificate to be known in the database.

  1. If you get a certutil error similar to “error converting ascii to binary,” try re-exporting your certificate. You might not have correctly selected the “base-64 encoded” format option as indicated.
  2. If you do not get any error messages, then your trusted root certificate should have been successfully imported into your certificate database. Verify by then executing this command:

certutil -L -d .

  1. If your certificate was successfully imported, you will see something similar to “my domain ca cert” and “C,C,C.
  2. On your exacqVision Server, run exacqVision Client and open the Active Directory/LDAP tab. Select the SSL checkbox (the port should automatically change to 636), and click Apply. Your exacqVision Server should then reconnect to your Active Directory domain controller.

NOTE: The attached article is an older document pertinent to using SSL for communication with an Active Directory or LDAP server.

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Configuring-SSL-on-an-exacqVision-Server-for-Active-Directory-LDAP-Windows-1.pdf