Reviewing and Resetting Manually Set Certificates in BOSH CredHub

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This topic describes how you can identify and update certificates that either you or another operator have set manually in BOSH CredHub.

Overview

A manually set certificate is a certificate that an operator has added directly to BOSH CredHub through the CredHub CLI instead of using a CredHub-generated certificate.

For example, you or another operator may have provided an existing certificate to BOSH CredHub as described in Preparing for TLS in the MySQL for Pivotal Platform documentation.

To ensure that VMware Tanzu Operations Manager (Ops Manager) does not rotate these certificates alongside CredHub-generated certificates, you must ensure that the generated field of all manually set certificates is set to false in CredHub.

In this procedure, you use the CredHub CLI to review existing certificates and then check for manually set certificates. If you find any manually set certificates that require updates, you can use the CredHub CLI to reset the certificate.

Find BOSH Client Credentials and BOSH Director IP Address

You need the BOSH client name and client secret to use the CredHub CLI.

To find the BOSH CredHub client name and client secret:

1. Navigate to the Ops Manager Installation Dashboard.

2. Click the BOSH Director tile.

3. Select the Credentials tab.

4. In the BOSH Director section, click the link next to the BOSH Commandline Credentials.

5. Record the values for BOSH_CLIENT and BOSH_CLIENT_SECRET. Below is an example of the credentials page:

   {"credential":"BOSH_CLIENT=ops_manager
   BOSH_CLIENT_SECRET=abcdefghijklm123456789
   BOSH_CA_CERT=/var/tempest/workspaces/default/root_ca_certificate
   BOSH_ENVIRONMENT=10.0.0.5 bosh "}
   

6. Select the Status tab.

7. In the BOSH Director row, locate and record the IP address of the BOSH Director. For example, 10.0.0.5.

Target and Log in to the BOSH CredHub API Server

You can run CredHub CLI commands on the Ops Manager VM.

To login and access the CredHub API:

1. SSH into the Ops Manager VM. For IaaS-specific instructions on how to SSH, see Log Into the Ops Manager VM with SSH.

2. Set the CredHub API target of the CLI by running:

   credhub api https://BOSH-DIRECTOR:8844 --ca-cert=/var/tempest/workspaces/default/root_ca_certificate
   

   Where BOSH-DIRECTOR is the IP address of the BOSH Director VM.

3. Log in to CredHub by running:

   credhub login --client-name=CREDHUB-CLIENT-NAME --client-secret=CREDHUB-CLIENT-SECRET
   

   Where:

   • CREDHUB-CLIENT-NAME is the value you recorded for BOSH_CLIENT in Find BOSH Client Credentials and BOSH Director IP Address.
   • CREDHUB-CLIENT-SECRET is the value you recorded for BOSH_CLIENT_SECRET in Find BOSH Client Credentials and BOSH Director IP Address.

Check Certificates in CredHub

After logging in to CredHub, you can query the CredHub API on the command line.

To retrieve a list of CredHub certificates:

1. Retrieve a list of all the certificates stored in CredHub by running:

   credhub curl -p "/api/v1/certificates" -X GET | jq .
   

2. In the JSON output, check the value of the generated field of each certificate. For example:

   {
     "certificates": [
     {
       "name": "/services/tls_ca",
       "id": "1b378f9c-d3dc-4519-9cde-20397f9d8d6b",
       "versions": [
         {
           "id": "3e41bba8-1373-4b51-b774-d65d9a0b87b4",
           "expiry_date": "2020-09-19T14:36:36Z",
           "transitional": false,
           "certificate_authority": true,
           "self_signed": true,
           "generated": null
         },
   

3. For each certificate where generated value is null, follow the procedure in Reset a Certificate in CredHub.

Reset a Certificate in CredHub

To reset a certificate in CredHub:

1. Retrieve a manually set certificate by running:

   credhub get -n SET-CERTIFICATE -k certificate > /tmp/certificate.yml
   credhub get -n SET-CERTIFICATE -k ca > /tmp/ca.yml
   credhub get -n SET-CERTIFICATE -k private_key > /tmp/private_key.yml
   

   Where SET-CERTIFICATE is the value of the name field in the manually set certificate you want to retrieve.

2. Reset the certificate depending on the certificate type.

   • If the retrieved certificate is a root CA certificate, run:

     credhub set -n SET-CERTIFICATE -t certificate -r /tmp/ca.yml -c /tmp/certificate.yml -p /tmp/private_key.yml
     

     Where SET-CERTIFICATE is the name of the manually set certificate you want to reset.

   • If the retrieved certificate is an intermediate or leaf certificate, run:

     credhub set -n SET-CERTIFICATE -t certificate -c /tmp/certificate.yml -p /tmp/private_key.yml -m SIGNING-CA
     

     Where:

     • SET-CERTIFICATE is the name of the manually set certificate you want to reset.
     • SIGNING-CA is the name of the signing root CA certificate.