Github user pepov commented on a diff in the pull request:
https://github.com/apache/nifi/pull/2927#discussion_r206455424
--- Diff: nifi-docs/src/main/asciidoc/administration-guide.adoc ---
@@ -281,6 +281,272 @@ After running the client you will have the CAâs
certificate, a keystore, a tru
For a client certificate that can be easily imported into the browser,
specify: `-T PKCS12`
+==== Using An Existing Intermediate Certificate Authority (CA)
+
+In some enterprise scenarios, a security/IT team may provide a signing
certificate that has already been signed by the organization's certificate
authority (CA). This *intermediate CA* can be used to sign the *node*
(sometimes referred to as *leaf*) certificates that will be installed on each
NiFi node. In order to inject the existing signing certificate into the toolkit
process, follow these steps:
+
+. Generate or obtain the signed intermediate CA keys in the following
format (see additional commands below):
+ * Public certificate in PEM format: `nifi-cert.pem`
+ * Private key in PEM format: `nifi-key.key`
+. Place the files in the *toolkit directory*. This is the directory where
the tool binary (usually called via the invoking script `tls-toolkit.sh` or
`tls-toolkit.bat`) is configured to output the signed certificates. *This is
not necessarily the directory where the binary is located or invoked*.
+ * For example, given the following scenario, the toolkit command can be
run from its location as long as the output directory `-o` is `../hardcoded/`,
and the existing `nifi-cert.pem` and `nifi-key.key` will be used.
+ ** e.g. `$ ./toolkit/bin/tls-toolkit.sh standalone -o ./hardcoded/ -n
'node4.nifi.apache.org' -P thisIsABadPassword -S thisIsABadPassword -O` will
result in a new directory at `./hardcoded/node4.nifi.apache.org` with a
keystore and truststore containing a certificate signed by
`./hardcoded/nifi-key.key`
+ * If the `-o` argument is not provided, the default working directory
(`.`) must contain `nifi-cert.pem` and `nifi-key.key`
+ ** e.g. `$ cd ./hardcoded/ && ../toolkit/bin/tls-toolkit.sh standalone
-n 'node5.nifi.apache.org' -P thisIsABadPassword -S thisIsABadPassword -O`
+
+```
+ð 0s @ 18:07:58 $ tree -L 2
+.
+âââ hardcoded
+â  âââ CN=myusername.hardcoded_OU=NiFi.p12
--- End diff --
there is no flags in the example commands indicating that client certs are
generated here, so it may be confusing to see this without additional info
---
