HTTPS certificate

X.509 certificates are used to authorize and secure communications with the server. They are mainly used for HTTPS, but can also be used for SIPS, CTIS, etc.

There are two categories of certificates in XiVO:

  • the default certificate, used for HTTPS in the web interface and REST APIs
  • the certificates created and managed via the web interface

This article is about the former. For the latter, see Telephony certificates.

Default certificate

XiVO uses HTTPS where possible. The certificates are generated at install time (or during the upgrade to 15.12+). The main certificate is placed in /usr/share/xivo-certs/server.crt.

However, this certificate is self-signed, and HTTP clients (browser or REST API client) will complain about this default certificate because it is not signed by a trusted Certification Authority (CA).

The default certificate is untrusted

To make the HTTP client accept this certificate, you have two choices:

  • configure your HTTP client to trust the self-signed XiVO certificate by adding a new trusted CA. The CA certificate (or bundle) is the file /usr/share/xivo-certs/server.crt.
  • replace the self-signed certificate with your own trusted certificate.

Use your own certificate

For this, follow these steps:

  1. Replace the following files with your own private key/certificate pair:
  • Private key: /usr/share/xivo-certs/server.key
  • Certificate: /usr/share/xivo-certs/server.crt
  1. Change the hostname of XiVO for each XiVO component: the different processes of XiVO heavily use HTTPS for internal communication, and for these connection to establish successfully, all hostnames used must match the Common Name (CN) of your certificate. Basically, you must replace all occurrences of localhost (the default hostname) with your CN in the configuration of the XiVO services. For example:

    mkdir /etc/xivo/custom
    cat > /etc/xivo/custom/custom-certificate.yml << EOF
    consul:
      host: xivo.example.com
    auth:
      host: xivo.example.com
    dird:
      host: xivo.example.com
    ajam:
      host: xivo.example.com
    agentd:
      host: xivo.example.com
    EOF
    for config_dir in /etc/xivo-*/conf.d/ ; do
        ln -s "/etc/xivo/custom/custom-certificate.yml" "$config_dir/010-custom-certificate.yml"
    done
    

    Also, you must replace localhost in the definition of your directories in the web interface under Configuration ‣ Directories.

  2. If your certificate is not self-signed, and you obtained it from a third-party CA that is trusted by your system, you must enable the system-based certificate verification. By default, certificate verification is set to consider /usr/share/xivo-certs/server.crt as the only CA certificate.

    The options are the following:

    • Consul: verify: True
    • Other XiVO services: verify_certificate: True

    The procedure is the same as 2. with more configuration for each service. For example:

    cat > /etc/xivo/custom/custom-certificate.yml << EOF
    consul:
      host: xivo.example.com
      verify: True
    auth:
      host: xivo.example.com
      verify_certificate: True
    dird:
      host: xivo.example.com
      verify_certificate: True
    ...
    

    Setting verify_certificate to False will disable the certificate verification, but the connection will still be encrypted. This is pretty safe as long as XiVO services stay on the same machine, however, this is dangerous when XiVO services are separated by an untrusted network, such as the Internet.

  3. Ensure your CN resolves to a valid IP address with either:

    • a DNS entry
    • an entry in /etc/hosts resolving your CN to 127.0.0.1. Note that /etc/hosts will be rewritten occasionally by xivo-sysconfd. To make the change persistent, you can:
      1. modify /usr/share/xivo-sysconfd/templates/resolvconf/hosts instead (which will be rewritten when xivo-sysconfd is upgraded...)
      2. then add a script in /usr/share/xivo-upgrade/pre-start.d to re-apply the modification to /usr/share/xivo-sysconfd/templates/resolvconf/hosts after each xivo-upgrade.
  4. Restart all XiVO services:

    xivo-service restart all