Well, that's not really an "infrastructure" then is it?  That's a single
server running all the roles with no separation and protection that you get
from separation. More importantly, PKI has many facets that have to be taken
into account.  You can't just leave the root CA machine on the network and
have it available for people to attack (best practice to protect the root
CA)and you have to have components in place to manage the crl's etc.  If a
single box is deployed, it fulfils the CA, RA, (and so on) roles.  Splitting
those roles is a best practice but you'll need them for a PKI; if your CA is
also the RA then it has to be available for clients vs. being off-line and
protected.  

It all depends on the requirements.  If you just need a cert to get a SSL
web page running, then it may not be a big deal.  If you intend to issue and
manage certs, then you really need to consider your approach and best
practices etc and it's likely that a single server CA isn't going to meet
all your needs.

Al 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jennifer Fountain [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 2:55 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] PKI Infrastructure Question

My coworker wants to forego the pki infrastructure and only install an
enterprise CA root on our DC or a dedicated machine. What are you thoughts
on this?

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of GRILLENMEIER,GUIDO
(HP-Germany,ex1)
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 1:29 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] PKI Infrastructure Question

good approach, especially when using 2003 which allows you to contrain the
capabilities of the subordinate CAs (should at least configure them with a
basic constraint that contains a pathLenConstraint=2, so that people can't
add other subordinates underneath your planned subordinates)

making the root stand-alone and taking it offline is also common practice.
subordinates as Enterprise CAs will give you the most feature-benefits (Auto
enrolement etc.) and I don't have an issue with putting these on DCs (you'll
have to protect your DCs anyways)

/Guido

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jennifer Fountain
Sent: Freitag, 19. M�rz 2004 18:15
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ActiveDir] PKI Infrastructure Question

We are finally getting around to implementing the PKI infrastructure here
and would like some advice.  

I had emailed several days ago about Ldap - unix box authenicating to AD
- and I got that working (in my test lab).  

Here is what I was going to implement and would like some advice or
direction if this is way off base.

Root (Stand-alone) CA (offline)
Subordinate Enterprise CA on DC

Is this normal practice or completely wrong.  Would you recommend install on
DC or is that a major NO NO.

Any thoughts, or advice...

Kind Regards,

Jennifer Fountain
3400 E. Walnut Street
Colmar, PA 18915
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