Easy-RSA - ArchWiki

# Easy-RSA

The first step when setting up OpenVPN is to create a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). In summary, this consists of:

- A public master Certificate Authority (CA) certificate and a private key.
- A separate public certificate and private key pair for each server.
- A separate public certificate and private key pair for each client.

One can think of the key-based authentication in terms similar to that of how SSH keys work with the added layer of a signing authority (the CA). OpenVPN relies on a bidirectional authentication strategy, so the client must authenticate the server's certificate and in parallel, the server must authenticate the client's certificate. This is accomplished by the 3rd party's signature (the CA) on both the client and server certificates. Once this is established, further checks are performed before the authentication is complete. For more details, see secure-computing's guide.

Note:

- The process outlined below requires users to securely transfer private key files to/from machines. For the purposes of this guide, using scp is shown, but readers may employ alternative methods as well. Since the Arch default is to deny the root user over ssh, using scp requires transferring ownership of the files to be exported to a non-root user called foo throughout the guide.
- Avoid generating keys on devices without a good entropy source. See [1].
- Due to a bug, the `vars` file is not sourced if it is not specified explicitly.

## Certificate Authority (CA)

For security purposes, it is recommended that the CA machine be separate from the machine running OpenVPN.

On the CA machine, install easy-rsa, initialize a new PKI and generate a CA keypair that will be used to sign certificates:

    # cd /etc/easy-rsa
    # easyrsa init-pki
    # easyrsa build-ca

## OpenVPN server files

A functional OpenVPN server requires the following (in alphabetical order):

1. The CA's public certificate
2. The Diffie-Hellman (DH) parameters file (needed for TLS mode which is recommended).
3. The server key pair (a public certificate and a private key).
4. The Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) key.

Upon completing the steps outlined in this article, users will have generated the following files on the server:

1. `/etc/openvpn/server/ca.crt`
2. `/etc/openvpn/server/dh.pem`
3. `/etc/openvpn/server/servername.crt` and `/etc/openvpn/server/servername.key`
4. `/etc/openvpn/server/ta.key`

### CA public certificate

The CA public certificate `/etc/easy-rsa/pki/ca.crt` generated in the previous step needs to be copied over to the machine that will be running OpenVPN.

On the CA machine:

    # cp /etc/easy-rsa/pki/ca.crt /tmp
    # chown foo /tmp/ca.crt

    $ scp /tmp/ca.crt foo@hostname-of-openvpn-server:/tmp

On the OpenVPN server machine:

    # mv /tmp/ca.crt /etc/openvpn/server/
    # chown root:root /etc/openvpn/server/ca.crt

### Server certificate and private key

On the OpenVPN server machine, install easy-rsa and generate a key pair for the server:

    # cd /etc/easy-rsa
    # easyrsa init-pki
    # easyrsa gen-req servername nopass
    # cp /etc/easy-rsa/pki/private/servername.key /etc/openvpn/server/

This will create two files:

`/etc/easy-rsa/pki/reqs/servername.req` `/etc/easy-rsa/pki/private/servername.key`

### Diffie-Hellman (DH) parameters file

On the OpenVPN server machine, create the initial dh.pem file:

    # openssl dhparam -out /etc/openvpn/server/dh.pem 2048

Note: Although values higher than 2048 (4096 for example) may be used, they take considerably more time to generate and offer little benefit in security but advisable to have the DH prime number length to match the length of the RSA key. See [2]

### Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) key

On the OpenVPN server machine, create the HMAC key:

    # openvpn --genkey --secret /etc/openvpn/server/ta.key

This will be used to add an additional HMAC signature to all SSL/TLS handshake packets. In addition any UDP packet not having the correct HMAC signature will be immediately dropped, protecting against:

- Portscanning.
- DOS attacks on the OpenVPN UDP port.
- SSL/TLS handshake initiations from unauthorized machines.
- Any eventual buffer overflow vulnerabilities in the SSL/TLS implementation.

## OpenVPN client files

### Client certificate and private key

Any machine can generate client files provided that easy-rsa is installed.

If the pki is not initialized, do so via:

    # cd /etc/easy-rsa
    # easyrsa init-pki

Generate the client key and certificate:

    # cd /etc/easy-rsa
    # easyrsa gen-req client1 nopass

This will create two files:

`/etc/easy-rsa/pki/reqs/client1.req` `/etc/easy-rsa/pki/private/client1.key`

The gen-req set can be repeated as many times as needed for additional clients.

## Sign the certificates and pass them back to the server and clients

### Obtain and sign the certificates on the CA

The server and client(s) certificates need to be signed by the CA then transferred back to the OpenVPN server/client(s).

On the OpenVPN server (or the box used to generate the certificate/key pairs):

    # cp /etc/easy-rsa/pki/reqs/*.req /tmp
    # chown foo /tmp/*.req

Securely transfer the files to the CA machine for signing:

    $ scp /tmp/*.req foo@hostname-of-CA:/tmp

On the CA machine, import and sign the certificate requests:

    # cd /etc/easy-rsa
    # easyrsa import-req /tmp/servername.req servername
    # easyrsa import-req /tmp/client1.req client1
    # easyrsa sign-req server servername
    # easyrsa sign-req client client1

This will create the following signed certificates which can be transferred back to their respective machines:

`/etc/easy-rsa/pki/issued/servername.crt` `/etc/easy-rsa/pki/issued/client1.crt`

The leftover .req files can be safely deleted:

    # rm -f /tmp/*.req

### Pass the signed certificates back to the server and client(s)

On the CA machine, copy the signed certificates and transfer them to the server/client(s):

    # cp /etc/easy-rsa/pki/issued/*.crt /tmp
    # chown foo /tmp/*.crt
    $ scp /tmp/*.crt foo@hostname-of-openvpn_server:/tmp

On the OpenVPN server, move the certificates in place and reassign ownership:

    # mv /tmp/servername.crt /etc/openvpn/server/
    # chown root:root /etc/openvpn/server/servername.crt

The signed client certificate can be stored anywhere since it will be used in the subsequent step of preparing the ovpn client profile file[broken link: invalid section].

    # mkdir /etc/easy-rsa/pki/signed
    # mv /tmp/client1.crt /etc/easy-rsa/pki/signed

## Revoking certificates and alerting the OpenVPN server

### Revoke a certificate

Over time, it may become necessary to revoke a certificate thus denying access to the affected user(s). This example revokes the "client1" certificate.

On the CA machine:

    # cd /etc/easy-rsa
    # easyrsa revoke client1
    # easyrsa gen-crl

This will produce the CRL file `/etc/easy-rsa/pki/crl.pem` that needs to be transferred to the OpenVPN server and made active there.

### Alert the OpenVPN server

On the CA machine:

    # cp /etc/easy-rsa/pki/crl.pem /tmp
    # chown foo /tmp/crl.pem

On the OpenVPN machine, copy `crl.pem` and inform the server to read it:

    # mv /tmp/crl.pem /etc/openvpn/server/
    # chown root:root /etc/openvpn/server/crl.pem

Edit `/etc/openvpn/server/server.conf` uncommenting the crl-verify directive, then restart openvpn-server@server.service to re-read it:

    /etc/openvpn/server/server.conf

    .
    crl-verify /etc/openvpn/server/crl.pem
    .

## See also

- README.quickstart.
- EASYRSA-Advanced.

Category:

- Virtual Private Network

Hidden category:

- Pages with broken section links