Hi Rob,

Thank you for your answer.
Assuming the ipa-migration path to a new CA, will it be possible to keep
and subordinate the existent Dogtag Sub-CAs (subordinated to the previous
CA) to this new CA, at least for a gradual transition?

Best regards,
Nelson

On Fri, 4 Apr 2025 at 14:21, Rob Crittenden <[email protected]> wrote:

> N. V. via FreeIPA-users wrote:
> > Hi Fraser, Florence,
> >
> > Thank you for the link (and the blog). We tried following those
> > instructions, but unfortunately, using that approach results in the loss
> > of all configurations linked to the CA, which is not exactly what we
> need.
> > To provide more context, we are currently analysing the following
> > scenarios to meet our customer’s requirements:
> >
> >   * Rekeying the Root CA – This is mandatory, even if it requires an
> >     unsupported manual process.
> >   * Transferring PKI Ownership to Third Parties – This involves
> >     introducing an external CA to sign FreeIPA’s root CA (whether
> >     externally or internally self-signed) and eventually rekeying
> >     FreeIPA's CA.
> >   * Deployment at Scale – The eventual solution will be rolled out
> >     across several hundred OT sites, with licensed support being
> considered.
> >
> > We are currently exploring the possibility of manually replacing the CA
> > and all internal certificates, but we are encountering challenges. Is
> > this a viable approach? One of our attempts involved using Certmonger’s
> > rekey feature to rekey the root CA. This generated a new CA certificate,
> > which was then used for issuing new certificates and even for the CRL.
> > However, this process did not update internal certificates
> > automatically, and attempting to manually resubmit them led to failures.
> >
> > Another approach we tested was manually replacing the CA certificate in
> > the NSS DB and LDAP, followed by manually triggering Certmonger’s renew
> > feature to propagate the new CA. However, this process also eventually
> > failed. We are now attempting a full manual replacement of all
> > certificates but we are loosing faith ...
> >
> > If we cannot successfully address these challenges, we may need to
> > explore alternative solutions in the market. Given your expertise, do
> > you see a viable path forward for this manual replacement, or is this
> > approach fundamentally flawed?
> >
> > Looking forward to your insights.
>
> I've never played with re-keying a CA but it is fundamentally a
> bootstrapping issue. Re-keying is creating an identically named CA with
> a new private key. So you'll have two valid CA's with the same name.
> This is why when you re-key the CA some certs don't work: because the
> chain is broken.
>
> If you are running IPA 4.12+ you may have the ipa-migrate tool. This
> will allow you to stand up a brand new IPA server (with its own CA) and
> migrate all of your IPA data from the existing one to this new one. That
> would allow you to set whatever new parameters you need. I assume you
> want/need a larger key size?
>
> This is also obviously disruptive as you will need to re-enroll all of
> your clients, stand up new IPA replica servers, re-issue any manual
> certificates, etc. But much of that you'd have to do anyway with a
> re-key. It's basically an inventory problem to find all the enrolled
> systems and those with certificates so you know which ones to change.
>
> Note that user passwords will be maintained but Kerberos principal keys
> will not. And by definition no certificates will be migrated. So your
> users will need to authenticate via the migration web page
> (/ipa/ui/migrate IIRC) and/or SSSD will do this for you. This is in the
> migration documentation.
>
> rob
>
> >
> > On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 at 18:59, Fraser Tweedale <[email protected]
> > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> >
> >     On Fri, Feb 07, 2025 at 08:44:52AM +0000, N. V. via FreeIPA-users
> wrote:
> >     > Hi again,
> >     >
> >     > So, if re-keying is not supported, what is the process that is
> >     recommended
> >     > for the cases where for instance the root keys are compromised? Is
> >     this
> >     > limitation also valid in the case when the root CA is external?
> >     >
> >     > Thanks,
> >     > Nelson V.
> >     >
> >     Hi Nelson,
> >
> >     Very unsupported and the instructions may be a little stale now
> >     (post is from 2019, Fedora 30), but this article walks through how
> >     to completely remove the CA from a FreeIPA deployment.  From there,
> >     you can create a new CA via `ipa-ca-install`.
> >
> >
> https://frasertweedale.github.io/blog-redhat/posts/2019-10-24-removing-ipa-ca.html
> >
> >     Hope it helps,
> >     Fraser
> >
> >     > On Thu, 6 Feb 2025 at 12:41, Florence Blanc-Renaud <[email protected]
> >     <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> >     >
> >     > > Hi,
> >     > >
> >     > > On Thu, Feb 6, 2025 at 12:18 PM N. V. via FreeIPA-users <
> >     > > [email protected]
> >     <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> >     > >
> >     > >> Hi,
> >     > >>
> >     > >> In our FreeIPA deployment we need to find a way to rekey the
> >     self-signed
> >     > >> root CA and afterwards update the chain and the certificates
> >     all the way
> >     > >> down. I have been unable to find detailed instructions in the
> >     official
> >     > >> documentation or through my own research, so I am reaching out
> >     for guidance.
> >     > >>
> >     > >> Could someone please provide instructions or point me to any
> >     relevant
> >     > >> resources on how to properly rekey the self-signed root CA in
> >     FreeIPA? Any
> >     > >> advice, tips, or potential pitfalls to avoid during this
> >     process would be
> >     > >> greatly appreciated.
> >     > >>
> >     > >
> >     > > Unfortunately we don't have any solution yet for this type of
> >     request.
> >     > > Please read more in *Bug 1873696*
> >     > > <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1873696> - [RFE]
> >     Need an
> >     > > option to replace the root CA key with another key with 3072 bits
> >     > >
> >     > > It would require to cross-sign the old CA with the new one but
> >     we never
> >     > > managed to find time to investigate this possibility.
> >     > > flo
> >     > >
> >     > >> Thank you in advance for your assistance!
> >     > >>
> >     > >> Nelson V.
> >     > >> --
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