Internal CA - managing certificates

Hi all,

We have an Internal CA issuing certificates. However, there are some servers, such as Edge services and a few others that have expired certificates.

How can we manage this from the Internal CA? Is there a console or alerting system to be able to send out alerts of certificates expiring at any point?

Also, should servers that connect directly to the CA auto renew?

Thanks,
Mark

LVL 15

MarkMichaelAsked: 2011-03-08

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LVL 11

TasmantCommented: 2011-03-08

You could find information for the CA to send email alerts here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc773129%28WS.10%29.aspx

But i think you cannot monitor the nearly expired certificates, unless you set reminders in your own Outlook for them. I've always proceed with this way, especially for DMZ servers such Edge or IIS which don't have access directly to the CA.

For auto renew, sure, you could auto renew for internal servers. It wouldn't be a security issue.

LVL 11

TasmantCommented: 2011-03-08

The 2008 / 2008R2 version is here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/active-directory-certificate-services-smtp-exit-module-for-windows-server-2008-r2-example.aspx

LVL 15

MarkMichaelAuthor Commented: 2011-03-08

How do certificates auto enroll anyway?

Is it an automated task via the HTTP page of the CA?

for example:

Exchange edge has an internal certificate on it.

It can get to http://internalca/certsrv

but not https://internalca/certsrv

Does auto renewal use the HTTP method or is it normally done differently?

The certificate was generated manually, so how does this fair in terms of auto renewing?

Sorry for all the questions!

LVL 11

TasmantCommented: 2011-03-08

automatic enrollment usually rely on DCOM and RPC protocol.
you can renew certificate with http, but only manually (unless you use 2008R2 and Windows 7 clients: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd759245.aspx)
if you cannot access https, either you have a firewall blocking port 443 from your edge to the internal CA, either the web enrollment site hasn't been configured to use https.
i think in your case the certificate won't update automatically

there's information here about port used and renewal methods :
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc784758%28WS.10%29.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc738405%28WS.10%29.aspx

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LVL 15

MarkMichaelAuthor Commented: 2011-03-09

Lovely, thanks for all that info.

Cheers.