HP UX IPSec Software Chapter, Using VeriSign Certificates, Using VeriSign Certificates

Using Certificates with HP-UX IPSec

Using VeriSign CertificatesUsing VeriSign Certificates

Overview

There are three main components in the VeriSign Managed PKI architecture.

•A VeriSign Managed PKI Certificate Authority (CA), which is located at a VeriSign data center and administered by VeriSign. The Managed PKI CA creates and manages certificates and Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs). The VeriSign Managed PKI CA is accessed through the VeriSign Managed PKI Control Center website.

•A local Managed PKI Administrator, a person located at your site who uses the VeriSign Managed PKI Control Center website to approve client certificate requests and can ask the Managed PKI CA to revoke a client's certificate.

•Clients located at your site who request, get and use certificates. For HP-UX IPSec, a client is a system that uses a certificate-based primary authentication method for IKE, such as RSA signatures. Each system must request and get a certificate before starting the HP-UX IPSec subsystem that uses certificate-based authentication.

To perform this task, use the ipsec_mgr program to request and receive certificates from the Managed PKI CA. The ipsec_mgr program will send the requests to the Managed PKI CA through the Managed PKI Control Center website.

The general data flow between these components is listed below and shown in Figure 4-1.

1.The IPSec administrator requests a VeriSign certificate using the ipsec_mgr program. The ipsec_mgr program sends a certificate request on behalf of HP-UX IPSec to the Managed PKI CA via the Managed PKI Control Center website.

2.The Managed PKI CA sends a Notify for Request message to the local Managed PKI Administrator at the customer site. This message notifies the Managed PKI Administrator that the client (the HP-UX IPSec system) is requesting a certificate. The Notify for Request message is typically sent using a secure email message.

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