Certificate Error Accessing HTTPS by IP Address - ssl

So, I've gone through the process of ensuring the certificate has the IP address in the subject alternative name, but when I go to visit the site via IP, it says that name does not match the certificate. The IP is obviously listed in the certificate and the CA Chain is trusted, but for some reason it continues to throw the warning. I am still waiting for the DNS names to be created, so I cannot yet test if it has the error with the DNS name.

In theory the IP address has to be listed in the SAN section as type IP, not DNS. In practice some broken applications require it the other way. Try to enter it as both IP and DNS to make it work in all cases.
I am still waiting for the DNS names to be created, so I cannot yet test if it has the error with the DNS name.
Just add the relation between name and IP address to the local hosts file on the computer. Then you don't have to wait for propagation of DNS setups.

Related

CN and certificates How to create certificates without a domain name

I want to generate some certificates that are NOT linked to a domain name. The reason is I dont have a domain name for my api yet. Could someone explain what I put in for cn if there is not domain name at all? I am just trying to test out some services over https. Thanks
If you access a resource by https:// then the client will expect the domain name from the URL to be included in the certificate. If the URL does not contain a domain name but an IP address then this one is expected - as subject alternative name with type IP. See Is it possible to have SSL certificate for IP address, not domain name? and How to generate a Self Signed SSL Certificate bound to IP address? for more about this.
Certificates without domain names or IP address are possible in other use cases but not in this one, at least as long the client is properly validating the certificate.

Can a valid SSL Certificate cause a Certificate Error if the DNS name used in the CSR is pending association with the machine it is to be used?

Currently in the process of moving an existing public facing site from Azure to our internal network. In order to retain the validity of the SSL (https) protocol I had to request another certificate for the the machine where the new site will reside.
I installed the cert on the system and it says it installed successfully but the site is showing a Certificate error in IE.
So I'm wondering if the fact that the CSR was created using the DNS name and the DNS hasn't yet been redirected to the new location; is the reason the Cert Error is being displayed?
The only way to access the new server is via IP address externally, not by the DNS name.
Does the site certificate get bound during creation to the DNS name of the server where it is supposed to reside or by the encrypted signature of the actual machine when the CSR (Certificate Signing Request) is generated?
Or is it both?
The only way to access the new server is via IP address externally, not by the DNS name.
I'm not fully sure what you are asking. But my interpretation of the question is that you have created a certificate for some DNS name (i.e. example.com) but then try to access the site by IP address since the DNS name is not available yet. And then you wonder why the browser complains (with an error you unfortunately not include in your question).
If my interpretation is correct then the reason for the browser error is that the hostname in the URL (i.e. the IP address you used) does not match the subject(s) of the certificate, i.e. the DNS name. This validation of name in URL against subject of certificate is an essential part of the certificate validation.

Accessing https sites with IP address [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Is it possible to have SSL certificate for IP address, not domain name? [closed]
(7 answers)
Closed 11 months ago.
I wonder why I am getting certificate error if I try to access a site with ip address instead of domain name. Lets say for example nslookup says google.com is 173.194.43.96, so I tried to browse https://173.194.43.96 and I got certificate error saying that the security certificate presented by this website was issued for a different website's address. Why is that so?
This is because an SSL certificate is issued for a particular domain name. If the certificate name doesn't match the visited domain, the browser will show an error.
One of the main functions of SSL is to prove to the user that they are really connecting to the site they requested, and not to an attacker masquerading as the end site. Without linking the domain name to the certificate this would not be possible.
It is conceivable that the browser certificate system could have been designed to include the IP address in the certificate, but this would make it difficult to use DNS load balancing or even to change hosting providers, as a new certificate would have to be issued each time this happened. If the certificate included just the IP address and not the domain, this would leave the user defenseless against DNS spoofing attacks. So the only way forward really was to use the domain alone.
As a matter of interest, it is possible to obtain an SSL certificate for an IP address - and as Google is their own certificate authority, they could issue themselves a certificate for 173.194.43.96 and thus make it possible to browse google securely by ip address, so long as they used SNI to serve up the correct certificate. It seems implausible that this would be worth the additional complexity however...
This is a nice introduction to SSL if you want to read more:
https://timnash.co.uk/guessing-ssl-questions/
On MAC High Sierra and Python 3.6.4, I tried the solution: requests toolbelt:HostHeaderSSLAdapter 1st, unfortunately, it doesn't work for me, then I tried
forcediphttpsadapter, got it works finally.
The author explains everything in the readme part and has provided a sample script and it can be followed easily.
1.Install the library by pip install requests[security] forcediphttpsadapter
2.run the sample script:
import requests
from forcediphttpsadapter.adapters import ForcedIPHTTPSAdapter
session = requests.Session()
session.mount("https://example.com", ForcedIPHTTPSAdapter(dest_ip='1.2.3.4'))
response = session.get(
'/some/path', headers={'Host': 'example.com'}, verify=False)
Note: For some cases, you may need to remove the prefix: 'www' from the url.
What happens is that the certificate is issued to www.google.com, and not to its IP address. Hence, your browser won't be able to verify the certificate, which lists www.google.com as entity.
For more info, see: www.digicert.com/ssl-support/certificate-name-mismatch-error.htm
The Common Name is typically composed of Host + Domain Name and will look like www.yoursite.com or yoursite.com. SSL Server Certificates are specific to the Common Name that they have been issued to at the Host level. The Common Name must be the same as the Web address you will be accessing when connecting to a secure site. For example, a SSL Server Certificate for the domain domain.com will receive a warning if accessing a site named www.domain.com or secure.domain.com, as www.domain.com and secure.domain.com are different from domain.com.

Set Up Of Common Name Of SSL Certificate To Protect Plesk Panel

A PCI Compliance scanner is balking that the self signed SSL certificate protecting secure access to Plesk Panel contains a name mismatch between the location of the Plesk Panel and the name on the certificate, namely the self-signed cert's name is "Parallels" and the domain to reach Plesk is 'ip address:8443'.
So I figured I would go ahead and get a free SSL certificate to try to fiddle with this error. But when I generated the certificate I used my server domain name as the site name when I generated the certificate. So if I visit 'domain name:8443' all is fine, no ssl warning. But if I visit 'ip address:8443' (which I believe is what the scanner does) I get the certificate name mismatch error, Digicert's ssl checker says that the certificate name should be the ip address.
Can I even generate a certificate whose common name is the ip address? I am tempted to say I should just do what the PCI scanner accepts, but what is really the correct common name to use? Anybody run into this issue before?
You can try a Subject Alternative Name extension for the IP address. Also, you can keep "Parallels" as the Common Name, and add a Subject Alternative Name extension for the DNS name, which should be the preferred match (i.e. higher precedence than Common Name.)
Can I even generate a certificate whose common name is the ip address?
No, you shouldn't. While this may work with some browser, this will fail with clients that are compliant with the HTTPS specification:
In some cases, the URI is specified as an IP address rather than a hostname. In this case, the iPAddress subjectAltName must be present in the certificate and must exactly match the IP in the URI.
If you want to use an IP address in a certificate, you must have it in as a Subject Alternative Name (of type IP address, not DNS). You can check this question for details on how to do this.
However, more importantly, it sounds like in your case you don't need to use the IP address at all.
The purpose of certificate name verification is to check that the identity in the certificate matches the identity as requested by the client. (Reverse lookups or other names don't matter.)
The fact that you've already configured your system for your domain name and that it works when using the name means that it's already configured properly. It sounds like your giving your scanning tool the IP address of what you're trying to scan (which isn't what the clients would normally use): make it use your host name instead. That's what the scanning tool should try to compare anyway.
Can I even generate a certificate whose common name is the ip address?
(Thanks Bruno for pointing to right solution) There is enough to set subjectAltName in CSR.
IFAIK there is no such option in Plesk, but here good instruction for openssl http://apetec.com/support/GenerateSAN-CSR.htm

Secure a url that has a cname record

I have a site that has subdomains for each user and a wildcard SSL Cert
https://user1.mysite.com
https://user2.mysite.com
The question is can someone set a cname record such as user1.theirsite.com -> user1.mysite.com and have it still use https?
Will it work if they install a SSL Cert on their server to secure the connection?
Thanks
The best way for this to work is if they arrange with you to have your SSL certificate include their "alias" as a Subject Alternate Name extension in your X.509 certificate.
This is the approach used by some CDNs when they host https sites for clients - they put all of the known site names that are hosted on one server in one large SSL certificate, and then the clients use CNAMEs to point their domain at the right CDN server.
The host name and certificate verification (and in fact, checking that SSL is used at all) are solely the responsibility of the client.
The host name verification will be done by the client, as specified in RFC 2818, based on the host name they request in their URL. Whether the host name DNS resolution is based on a CNAME entry or anything else is irrelevant.
If users are typing https://user1.theirsite.com/ in their browser, the certificate on the target site should be valid for user1.theirsite.com.
If they have their own server for user1.theirsite.com, different to user1.mysite.com, a DNS CNAME entry wouldn't make sense. Assuming the two hosts are effectively distinct, they could have their own valid certificate for user1.theirsite.com and make a redirection to https://user1.theirsite.com/. The redirection would also be visible in the address bar.
If you really wanted to have a CNAME from user1.theirsite.com to user1.mysite.com, they might be able to give you their certificate and private key so that you host it on your site too, using Server Name Indication (assuming same port, and of course same IP address since you're using a CNAME). This would work for clients that support SNI. There would however be a certain risk to them in giving you their private keys (which isn't generally recommended).
The following is set up and working:
DNS entry for a.corp.com -> CNAME b.corp2.com -> A 1.2.3.4
The haproxy at 1.2.3.4 will serve up the cert for a.corp.com and the site loads fine from a webserver backend.
So, on your server you will need user1.theirsite.com cert and it will work.