When you choose to encrypt the PKCS#11 PIN(s) using a custom password, on starting or restarting the external-indexer service, you are asked to enter your password using a special tool.
To provide your password using the required tool
-
Start the external-indexer service:
systemctl start external-indexer
-
The external-indexer service prompts you to provide a password using the systemd-ask-password tool. Issue:
systemd-tty-ask-password-agent
-
Provide the password at the prompt. You can use multiple agents to enter the password.
-
Once the external indexer(s) have been started or restarted, make sure that all the indexers have started up successfully.
For example, on CentOS 7, you can use:
systemctl status external-indexer
SoftHSM is the software implementation of an HSM. It can be installed from the EPEL repository. The configuration of SoftHSM can be found at /etc/softhsm2.conf (CentOS 7), or /etc/softhsm.conf (CentOS 6).
The following describes how to configure SoftHSM.
NOTE: Depending on the exact SoftHSM solution that you are using, the steps described here may slightly differ.
NOTE: The following steps assume that:
Prerequisites
The indexer user/group has the rights to read the data directory of SoftHSM and its contents, which defaults to /var/lib/softhsm.
To configure SoftHSM
-
Initialize directories for SoftHSM.
mkdir -p /var/lib/softhsm
chgrp -R indexer /var/lib/softhsm
-
Configure slots for softhsm1 (CentOS 6). For softhsm2 (CentOS 7), you can skip this step.
cat /etc/softhsm.conf
0:/var/lib/softhsm/slot0.db
1:/var/lib/softhsm/slot1.db
-
Initialize slot 0 (softhsm1).
softhsm --init-token --slot 0 --label "<your-slot-label>" –-<so-pin> topsecret --pin <your-SoftHSM-PIN>
-
Initialize a new slot (softhsm2) and get the slot ID:
softhsm2-util --init-token --free --label "<your-slot-label>" --<so-pin> topsecret --pin <your-SoftHSM-PIN>
SLOT_ID=$(softhsm2-util --show-slots | grep -B 15 "<your-slot-label>" | grep "Slot [0-9]" | head -n 1 | cut -d ' ' -f 2)
-
Import your keys. Your keys must be in the .der format.
For softhsm1, use:
pkcs11-tool --module /usr/lib/softhsm/libsofthsm.so -l -y privkey --slot 0 -w key.der -d 001 -a <your-key-label> --pin <your-SoftHSM-PIN>
For softhsm2, use:
pkcs11-tool --module /usr/lib/softhsm/libsofthsm2.so -l -y privkey --slot 0 -w key.der -d 001 -a <your-key-label> --pin <your-SoftHSM-PIN>
-
Make sure that the indexer user/group has execute right to the token directory and read right to the token files below the /var/lib/softhsm/tokens/ directory.
-
Test your SoftHSM configuration with the indexer.
source /etc/indexer/external-indexer.env
indexerworker -l -v 7 --pkcs11-lib "<your-SoftHSM-library>" --pkcs11-slot-id 0 --pkcs11-pin "<your-SoftHSM-PIN>"
-
Encrypt the PKCS#11 PIN(s). For detailed instructions, see Encrypting a PKCS#11 PIN.
-
Update the "pkcs11" object in the /etc/indexer/indexerworker.cfg file.
...
"pkcs11": {
"slots": [
{
"library": "/usr/lib/softhsm/libsofthsm.so",
"slot_id": 0,
"pin": "<your-encrypted-PIN>"
}
]
}
...
Amazon Web Services (AWS) CloudHSM provides hardware security modules in the AWS Cloud.
The following describes how to configure CloudHSM.
NOTE: The following steps assume that:
-
You have set up your AWS CloudHSM, that is, you have created a user for the indexer, imported/generated keys, and so on.
For detailed information on AWS CloudHSM, see the AWS CloudHSM User Guide.
-
The CloudHSM PKCS#11 library is installed.
-
The external indexer has been installed.
To configure CloudHSM
-
Test your environment as described in Setting up and testing the environment.
Note that you will need to provide your CloudHSM PIN in the following format:
"<your-CloudHSM-username:your-CloudHSM-PIN>"
-
Encrypt the PKCS#11 PIN(s). For detailed instructions, see Encrypting a PKCS#11 PIN.
-
Update the "pkcs11" object in the /etc/indexer/indexerworker.cfg file.
...
"pkcs11": {
"custom_password": true
"slots": [
{
"library": "/opt/cloudhsm/lib/libcloudhsm_pkcs11.so",
"slot_id": 1,
"pin": "<your-encrypted-PIN>"
}
]
}
...
NOTE: Using the external indexer with a smart card is currently an experimental feature only.
To configure a smart card
-
Install OpenSC, for example, from the EPEL repository of CentOS.
-
Ensure that the PC/SC Smart Card Daemon (pcscd) service is running:
-
On CentOS 6:
service pcscd start
-
On CentOS 7:
systemctl enable pcscd
systemctl start pcscd
Alternatively, you can use:
systemctl enable pcscd.socket
systemctl start pcscd.socket
This ensures that the pcscd service will not start at system startup, it will only start when there is an attempt (for example, by the indexerworker) to connect to it.
-
Test your environment as described in Setting up and testing the environment.
-
Encrypt the PKCS#11 PIN(s). For detailed instructions, see the Encrypting a PKCS#11 PIN.
-
Update the "pkcs11" object in the /etc/indexer/indexerworker.cfg file, for example:
...
"pkcs11": {
"slots": [
{
"library": "/usr/lib64/pkcs11/opensc-pkcs11.so",
"slot_id": 1,
"pin": "encrypted_pin"
}
]
}
...
