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Elastic Docs ›Elastic Cloud Enterprise Reference [3.5] ›Securing your installation

Manage security certificates

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Manage security certificates

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During installation, Elastic Cloud Enterprise generates certificates so that you can connect to your installation securely. In order to connect securely, you must first download and trust the CA certificates generated during installation before issuing any requests to ECE. If your organization operates as its own certificate authority, you can provide your certificates for ECE to avoid a security warning when connecting to the Cloud UI over HTTPS.

In these instructions, we show you how you can download the security certificate that gets generated during the ECE installation and use it to add your own TLS/SSL certificates. You can add your TLS/SSL certificates any time after you have installed ECE on your hosts. In addition to the steps shown here, you might also need to import your CA certificate into your browser certificate chain, if you don’t already use the same certificate within your organization.

You can change the certificates for the following ECE components separately:

Cloud UI certificate
Used to connect securely to the Cloud UI and to make RESTful API calls.
Proxy certificate

Used to connect securely to Elasticsearch clusters and Kibana. You should use a wildcard certificate rooted at the cluster endpoint that you set (*.example.com, for example). A wildcard certificate is required, because the first label of the DNS address is distinct for Elasticsearch clusters and Kibana (bc898abb421843918ebc31a513169a.example.com, for example).

If you wish to enable custom endpoint aliases in ECE 2.10 or later, please also follow the directions for adding Subject Alternative Name (SAN) entries to support these aliases.

After the certificates have been installed, connecting securely to Elasticsearch, Kibana, and the Cloud UI or making secure RESTful API calls to ECE should not result in any security warnings or errors.

Before you begin

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When uploading the certificate chain to ECE, the following requirements apply:

  • You must upload the full certificate chain, including certificate authorities.
  • The chain must be in this order: Private key > SSL certificate > Interim CA (optional) > Root CA.
  • The certificates must be in PEM format and the result should be a single file containing the full chain.

The PEM file should be structured like this:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
(Your Private Key: your_domain_name.key)
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
(Your Primary SSL certificate: your_domain_name.crt)
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
(Your Intermediate certificate: Intermediate.crt)
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
(Your Root certificate: TrustedRoot.crt)
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Each key and certificate would be generated by you or your IT team.

Get existing ECE security certificates

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Obtain the existing certificate generated during the installation of ECE.

  1. You can use the openssl command line tool to display the whole server certificate chain. Run the command against the Cloud UI URL provided at the end of the installation process on your first host, 192.168.43.10:12343 in our example:

    openssl s_client -showcerts -connect 192.168.43.10:12343 < /dev/zero

CONNECTED(00000003)
depth=2 CN = elastic ce master
verify error:num=19:self signed certificate in certificate chain
---
Certificate chain
 0 s:/CN=elastic ce admin console a954e2668da4
   i:/CN=elastic ce admin console root
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----
 1 s:/CN=elastic ce admin console root
   i:/CN=elastic ce master
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----
 2 s:/CN=elastic ce master
   i:/CN=elastic ce master
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----
---
Server certificate
subject=/CN=elastic ce admin console a954e2668da4
issuer=/CN=elastic ce admin console root
---
No client certificate CA names sent
Peer signing digest: SHA512
Server Temp Key: ECDH, P-256, 256 bits
---
SSL handshake has read 3120 bytes and written 433 bytes
---
New, TLSv1/SSLv3, Cipher is ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
Server public key is 2048 bit
Secure Renegotiation IS supported
Compression: NONE
Expansion: NONE
No ALPN negotiated
SSL-Session:
    Protocol  : TLSv1.2
    Cipher    : ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
    Session-ID: C9FA70D80592981C4174F490EF47AF0091326AED6ED4115CED30A9861EBD7758
    Session-ID-ctx:
    Master-Key: 0EF40D4B72E102395352FE7935CAA47CA84BF743E8BF102B98856AFCB76E4BDDCEFDE3E0F7D4D4681A3BCFB170864C9F
    Key-Arg   : None
    PSK identity: None
    PSK identity hint: None
    SRP username: None
    Start Time: 1488824550
    Timeout   : 300 (sec)
    Verify return code: 19 (self signed certificate in certificate chain)
---
HTTP/1.1 501 Not Implemented
Server: fac/9431ee
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2017 18:21:19 GMT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Connection: close
Content-Length: 23
Unsupported HTTP methodclosed

  2. Save the last certificate shown in the output to a local file, elastic-ece-ca-cert.pem in this example:

    cat << EOF > ~/elastic-ece-ca-cert.pem
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----
EOF

    In subsequent steps, this elastic-ece-ca-cert.pem file is referred to as the CA_CERTIFICATE_FILENAME and used to add your own TLS/SSL certificates.

Generate a CA certificate and X.509 certificate chain

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The steps in this section provide high-level instructions on what you need to do if you do not already have a CA certificate and X.509 certificate chain. The method by which you generate the certificate and certificate chain differs by operating system, and the exact steps are outside the scope of these instructions.

The high-level steps to generate the necessary files include:

  1. Generate a certificate authority (CA) RSA key pair.
  2. Create a self-signed CA certificate.
  3. Generate a server RSA key pair.
  4. Create a certificate signing request (CSR) for server certificate with the common name and the alternative name set.
  5. Sign the server CSR with CA key pair.
  6. Concatenate the PEM encode server RSA private key, the server certificate, and the CA certificate into a single file.

Use the concatenated file containing the unencrypted RSA private key, server certificate, and CA certificate when adding your own TLS/SSL certificates in subsequent steps.

If your organization already uses a CA certificate and X.509 certificate chain, you need to have these files ready. You also need your unencrypted RSA private key.

Add a Cloud UI certificate

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To add a Cloud UI certificate from the Cloud UI:

  1. Log into the Cloud UI.
  2. From the Platform menu, select Settings.
  3. Under TLS settings for the Cloud UI, choose Upload new certificate and select a concatenated file containing your RSA private key, server certificate, and CA certificate. Upload the selected file.

To get the details of the certificate you added, select Show certificate chain.

To add a Cloud UI certificate from the command line:

  1. Add the certificate for the Cloud UI to your ECE installation, where CA_CERTIFICATE_FILENAME is the name of the CA certificate you downloaded earlier and CLOUDUI_PEM_FILENAME is the name of the concatenated file containing your RSA private key, server certificate, and CA certificate:

    curl --cacert CA_CERTIFICATE_FILENAME -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-binary @CLOUDUI_PEM_FILENAME --user "admin:PASSWORD" "https://admin:12443/api/v1/platform/configuration/security/tls/ui"
  2. Log out of the Cloud UI and log in again.

  3. Verify that you are now using the new certificate chain. There should be no security warnings when you connect to the Cloud UI over HTTPS in your web browser.

    Alternatively, you can also check the certificate using the openssl command:

    openssl s_client -CAfile CA_CERTIFICATE_FILENAME -showcerts -connect containerhost:12443 < /dev/zero

After adding your certificate, API requests made through the Cloud UI should use your certificate. When you use the curl command, include the path to your CA certificate with the --cacert parameter.

Add a proxy certificate

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To add a proxy certificate from the Cloud UI:

  1. Log into the Cloud UI.
  2. From the Platform menu, select Settings.

  3. Under TLS settings for the proxy, choose Upload new certificate and select a concatenated file containing your RSA private key, server certificate, and CA certificate. Upload the file.

    To get the details of the certificate you added, select Show certificate chain.

To add a proxy certificate from the command line:

  1. Add the wildcard certificate chain for the proxy to your ECE installation, where CA_CERTIFICATE_FILENAME is the name of the CA certificate you downloaded earlier and PROXY_PEM_FILENAME is the name of the concatenated file containing your RSA private key, server certificate, and CA certificate:

    curl --cacert CA_CERTIFICATE_FILENAME -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-binary @PROXY_PEM_FILENAME --user "admin:PASSWORD" "https://admin:12343/api/v1/platform/configuration/security/tls/proxy"
  2. Log out of any Kibana instances you might be logged into and log in again.

  3. Verify that you are now using the new certificate chain. There should be no security warnings when you connect to the Elasticsearch or Kibana endpoints over HTTPS in your web browser.

    Alternatively, you can also use the openssl command to check the proxy certificates, where HOSTNAME_OR_IP is the hostname or IP address of the proxy host:

    openssl s_client -CAfile CA_CERTIFICATE_FILENAME -showcerts -connect HOSTNAME_OR_IP:9243 < /dev/zero
openssl s_client -CAfile CA_CERTIFICATE_FILENAME -showcerts -connect HOSTNAME_OR_IP:9343 < /dev/zero

Limitations

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  • You cannot add certificates signed by an internal certificate authority to be used for outbound connections.
  • In versions 2.6 and later, some or all platform certificates are generated with a 398 day expiration. Installations running these versions must have their certificates rotated manually before expiry. For details, check our KB article.
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