asked on

Renewing Microsoft root CA certificate

Hi expert,

we have an ActiveDirectory and a Microsoft CA here.
The certificate of that CA will expire in August, 2015.

Because we don`t want (client-)certificates with retention periods < 1 year, we have to rene the CA-certificate next month.
So as I saw, there is the possibility to create a new pair of keys or to use the existings one.
My currently issued certificates must be valid after renewal. Does this mean, that I have to keep the existing pair of keys?

Will renewing with the existing pair affect any already issued certificates, or will they work on until their end date?

And I have one problem:
When right-clicking the root-CA I see 2 root certifactes, that are valid at the Moment (Nr.2, Nr.3).
Thre are 2 old certificates (Nr.0, Nr.1) that are expired.

Is this nomal?
Why are there 2 certificates?
Do I have to renew both certificates?

I hope that renewing process will be straight forward.

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Best regards
Roland

Mahesh

You can renew CA certificate with either new key pair or same key pair, it does not matter
When you generate a new key pair for a CA that is being renewed, a new certificate revocation list (CRL) distribution point is also created. This is to ensure that the key used to sign a certificate issued by the CA also matches the key used to sign the CRL
Or you can use existing key pair if wanted to.

The already issued certs have their expiry date set \ hardcoded in issued certificate itself, so they will expire at that time, you cannot extend there expiry date by renewing CA certificate, after you renew CA certificate, the new certificates that CA will issue will get full \ proper expiry period that is mentioned in certificate template

Important thing, CA cannot issue certificates with more validity period than its own certificate expiry period
Hence you need to renew CA certificate with either existing pair \ new pair before its certificate gets expired otherwise all your issued certificate will automatically get expired. Furthermore I guess you still need to renew your existing issued certs as well because there expiry date also might be equal \ less than CA certificate expiry date.
you cannot renew expired certificate. You have to renew it before it expires. Otherwise you need to request new certificate

Last thing, the certificates with No.0 and 1 are expired as per there validity period and that is why you have renewed No.2 and 3 later on.
hence its normal
You need to renew the last certificate (No.3) only

Check below topic in this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc740209(v=ws.10).aspx MS article
The validity period of a CA and the validity period of the certificates it issues

Systemadministration

ASKER

Thank you for your answer!
So there will be no risk when renewing the cert?

I don`t understand why there is No. 2 and No.3 with the same expiry date.
Why are there 2 valid certificates and not just one?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Mahesh

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Systemadministration

ASKER

OK, it seems,that there were two root-certificates renwed last time.
But in certificate list I see only cetificates which use the No. 3 as root certificate.
Ich will renew No. 3 tommorow and hope I will be save.

No.2 will expire in August and No.3 should stay valid.

Right?

Mahesh

Yes, That's right.