CZERTAINLY Core

This repository is part of the 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)
• CMP

Message brokers support

Application supports two types of message brokers:

• RabbitMQ - uses JmsPoolConnectionFactory with configurable connection pool settings
• Azure Service Bus - uses JmsConnectionFactory with two authentication options:
  • SAS (Shared Access Signature) - uses connection string with policy name and key
  • AAD (Azure Active Directory / Entra ID) - uses OAuth2 with Service Principal credentials

Authentication configuration

Broker	Authentication	Required variables
RabbitMQ	Username/Password	BROKER_USERNAME, BROKER_PASSWORD
Azure Service Bus	SAS	BROKER_USERNAME, BROKER_PASSWORD
Azure Service Bus	AAD	BROKER_AZURE_TENANT_ID, BROKER_AZURE_CLIENT_ID, BROKER_AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET

Docker container

Core is provided as a Docker container. Use the czertainly/czertainly-core:tagname to pull the required image from the repository. It can be configured using the following environment variables:

Variable	Description	Required	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		ssl-client-cert
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
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
BROKER_TYPE	Message broker type - supported values are SERVICEBUS or RABBITMQ		RABBITMQ
BROKER_URL	Message broker url (include protocol, e.g. amqp://localhost:5672 for RabbitMQ, amqps://namespace.servicebus.windows.net:5671 for ServiceBus)		N/A
BROKER_USERNAME	Message broker username (required for RabbitMQ and ServiceBus+SAS)		N/A
BROKER_PASSWORD	Message broker password (required for RabbitMQ and ServiceBus+SAS)		N/A
BROKER_AZURE_TENANT_ID	Azure AD tenant ID (required for ServiceBus+AAD authentication)		N/A
BROKER_AZURE_CLIENT_ID	Azure AD application (client) ID (required for ServiceBus+AAD)		N/A
BROKER_AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET	Azure AD client secret (required for ServiceBus+AAD authentication)		N/A
BROKER_AZURE_TOKEN_REFRESH_INTERVAL	Azure AD token refresh interval in seconds (required for ServiceBus+AAD authentication)		300
BROKER_AZURE_TOKEN_GETTING_TIMEOUT	Azure AD token getting timeout in seconds (required for ServiceBus+AAD authentication)		30
BROKER_EXCHANGE	Message broker exchange/topic name		czertainly
BROKER_VHOST	Message broker vhost (for RabbitMQ only)		N/A
BROKER_SESSION_CACHE_SIZE	ConnectionCachingFactory session cache size (only for RabbitMQ)		25
BROKER_QUEUE_AUDIT_LOGS	Queue name for audit logs (for RabbitMQ only)		core.audit-logs
BROKER_QUEUE_EVENT	Queue name for events (for RabbitMQ only)		core.event
BROKER_QUEUE_NOTIFICATION	Queue name for notifications (for RabbitMQ only)		core.notification
BROKER_QUEUE_SCHEDULER	Queue name for scheduler (for RabbitMQ only)		core.scheduler
BROKER_QUEUE_VALIDATION	Queue name for validation (for RabbitMQ only)		core.validation
BROKER_ROUTINGKEY_ACTIONS	Routing key for actions		actions
BROKER_ROUTINGKEY_AUDIT_LOGS	Routing key for audit logs		auditlogs
BROKER_ROUTINGKEY_EVENT	Routing key for events		event
BROKER_ROUTINGKEY_NOTIFICATION	Routing key for notifications		notification
BROKER_ROUTINGKEY_SCHEDULER	Routing key for scheduler		scheduler
BROKER_ROUTINGKEY_VALIDATION	Routing key for validation		validation
SETTINGS_CACHE_REFRESH_INTERVAL	Interval of scheduled settings cache refresh from DB (in seconds)		30

OpenTelemetry settings

Core supports OpenTelemetry for producing signals (metrics, traces, logs) to the observability system. The following environment variables can be used to configure OpenTelemetry:

Variable	Description	Required	Default value
OTEL_SDK_DISABLED	Disables the OpenTelemetry SDK. Supported values: true, false. OpenTelemetry SDK is disabled by default		true
OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER	The logs exporter to use. Supported values: none, otlp, logging.		none
OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER	The metrics exporter to use. Supported values: none, otlp, logging.		none
OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER	The traces exporter to use. Supported values: none, otlp, logging.		none
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_LOGS_ENDPOINT	Endpoint URL for log data only, with an optionally-specified port number. Typically ends with v1/logs when using OTLP/HTTP.		http://localhost:4317
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_LOGS_PROTOCOL	Protocol to use for the logs exporter. Supported values: grpc, http/protobuf, http/json.		grpc
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_ENDPOINT	Endpoint URL for metric data only, with an optionally-specified port number. Typically ends with v1/metrics when using OTLP/HTTP.		http://localhost:4317
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_PROTOCOL	Protocol to use for the metrics exporter. Supported values: grpc, http/protobuf, http/json.		grpc
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT	Endpoint URL for trace data only, with an optionally-specified port number. Typically ends with v1/traces when using OTLP/HTTP.		http://localhost:4317
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_PROTOCOL	Protocol to use for the traces exporter. Supported values: grpc, http/protobuf, http/json.		grpc

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	Required	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