Secure Communications

Introduction Copied

This user guide provides procedural instructions to enable secure communications across the various Geneos functional areas and components such as Gateway, Netprobe, Active Console.

Geneos components communicate using a proprietary stream-based protocol known internally as EMF2. It uses standard TCP/IP (IPv4 only). Connections are unencrypted by default but can be protected by enabling TLS between components.

All Geneos components can accept inbound connections but access can be controlled using configuration options which depend on the specific component. Depending on the configurations used, each Geneos component may act as an active initiator of EMF2 connections or as a passive listener, or as both.

Additionally, all Geneos components accept HTTP (HTTPS if TLS is enabled) on the same listening port, primarily for diagnostic purposes but also to support remote APIs such as REST, XML-RPC and others. As with EMF2, this access can be controlled through configuration options.

Interoperability with firewalls and other network appliances cannot be guaranteed as many devices may miss-classify the connections. Administrators must account for this when designing and deploying Geneos.

Beginning Geneos 5.5.x there is support for SNI (Service Name Indication) when TLS is enabled to assist in routing connections correctly based on destination host names.

Secure communications technical reference material for these components can be found here:

Overview Copied

The Geneos Enterprise Management Framework (EMF) protocol that is used to transmit data between Geneos components supports a secure protocol that encrypts data before transmitting it. The protocol used is Transport Layer Security (TLS). TLS versions 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 are supported.

A Geneos server is any Geneos component that listens on a prescribed port and accepts connections from other Geneos components on that port.

In order for secure communications to be established, each Geneos server must be provided with a key pair composed of a signed x509 certificate and private key.

For example, given the following setup:

In this situation, the netprobe is a server, providing a service to the gateway and the gateway is a server providing a service to the Active Console. To set this up using secure ports, a key pair must be provided for both the netprobe and the gateway.

If self announcing probes are used, the setup of servers is simpler.

Here, the Gateway is the only server. Both the Active Console and the Netprobe connect to the gateway using the TCP port that it makes available. To set this up securely a key pair need only be provided for the gateway.

Minimum TLS versions Copied

TLS connections are supported up to TLS 1.3.

Note

Beginning Geneos 5.6.x, you can run SSL/TLS connections on RHEL 8 platform. The minimum Geneos version for SSL/TLS connections to work on RHEL 8 is 4.9.x or higher.

A minimum supported TLS version can be specified on the Gateway, Licence Daemon, Netprobe and Webslinger using the command line argument -minTLSversion and the TLS version value. The accepted values are:

A minimum supported TLS version can be specified for Netprobe and Gateway Recorder using the MIN_TLS_VERSION environment variable.

Active Console negotiates the best possible version on connection. Attempting connections with an Active Console earlier than v4.9 with a minimum TLS version higher than 1.0 fail to connect.

Failed attempts to connect securely result in the error message:

-ERROR: SSLConnector:accept SSL Error:[140760fc] SSL23_GET_CLIENT_HELLO:unknown protocolWarning

Caution

When a connection fails, Active Console continually tries to reconnect. This results in a large number of error messages in the Gateway log if the connection keeps failing.

TLS ciphers Copied

When using TLS version 1.3 or lower, you can now control the TLS ciphers that are available for components that provide secure EMF2 connections.

To control the available TLS ciphers use the -openssl-cipher <ciphers> command-line option, replacing <ciphers> with a comma separated list of ciphers. This limits the TLS ciphers used in both outgoing and incoming TLS connections to those listed.

The list of possible ciphers depends on the version of TLS that is being used. For a full list of ciphers, see the Open SSL ciphers documentation.

Note

To manually disable older TLS versions or other weak ciphers for Java applications, add the cipher you want to disable to the jdk.tls.disabledAlgorithms property of the java.security file. For example, adding TLSv1, TLSv1.1, and CBC to the list disables the TLSv1 and TLSv1.1 protocols, and the CBC ciphers.


 #Example:
  jdk.tls.disabledAlgorithms=TLSv1, TLSv1.1, CBC

The location of the java.security file is as follows:

  • For Java 8, it is located in <Java location>/lib/security.
  • For Java11, it is located in <Java location>/conf/security.

Creating secure Geneos servers Copied

Geneos server components read the key pairs at start up. Their locations are provided using the following command line options;

-ssl-certificate <file>
-ssl-certificate-key <file>

The ssl-certificate command line option points to a file that can either contain just the TLS certificate, or both the TLS certificate and the server’s private key. If the private key is not provided in the certificate file it can be provided in a separate file using the ssl-certificate-key option. Both of these files are expected to have their contents stored using PEM (Privacy-enhanced Electronic Mail) format.

The key pair provides the Geneos servers with the ability to provide a TLS-encrypted connection to their clients. In order to enable this the secure service must be turned on. The way that the secure service is turned on differs for different Geneos components.

Netprobe Copied

For normal Netprobes (not self-announcing or floating), TLS is enabled using the -secure command line option.

If the -secure option is not provided then the Netprobe provides a normal TCP socket for communication, and data sent between the Gateway and the Netprobe is unencrypted.

If the -secure option is provided at Netprobe start-up then the Netprobe will provide TLS-encrypted communications so long as a key pair is also provided. If a readable key pair is not provided the Netprobe does not start.

Gateway Copied

For gateways, TLS is enabled or disabled using the gateway setup. The security of the gateway ports is controlled via the operating environment ListenPorts setting. This allow the gateway to be configured to listen on a secure port, an insecure port or both. In the example below, the Gateway has been configured to listen securely on the default port (which is 7038).

SSL Gateway operating environment

Licence Daemon Copied

For licence daemons(licd), TLS is enabled using the -secure command line flag. If the -secure option is provided then licd will serve pages across a TLS encrypted socket so long as a key pair is also provided. If the -secure option is provided at licd start-up without a readable key pair then the licd will not start.

Webslinger Copied

For Webslingers, TLS is enabled using the -secure command line flag. If the -secure option is provided then webslinger will serve pages across a TLS encrypted socket so long as a key pair is also provided. If the -secure option is provided at Webslinger start-up without a readable key pair then the webslinger will not start. Web browsers connecting to it will need to use HTTPS rather than HTTP in order to view the web pages.

Geneos Clients Copied

When a Geneos client connects to a Geneos server it may connect securely or insecurely. The connection type of the client must match the connection type of the server. Different clients configure this in different ways.

Active Console Copied

The Active Console has two different ways to configure a connection to a gateway. The most common way is to add the connection to the connections list in the Active Console settings. This connection has a secure connections check box that is used to indicate if the Active Console should connect securely or insecurely to the Gateway in question.

The second method of specifying gateway connections is to use a Connections file. This file is specified in the Active Console guide, and each connection entry specifies the gateway host(s), port, login details and the connection security setting.ccc.

Gateway Copied

When specifying a Netprobe connection in the gateway, along with the host and port for the connection, the administrator must indicate if this connection is secure by using the secure checkbox. This checkbox is available on both the probe and probe groups, allowing groups of probes two be switched from insecure to secure with ease.

SSL Gateway Probe

SSL Gateway Probe group

Netprobe Copied

When specifying a gateway connection in the self announcing (or floating) netprobe setup file the security of the connection can be set using the tag as shown below. This tag is optional. If it is not supplied the probe will attempt to connect to the netprobe insecurely.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<netprobe
   compatibility= 
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://schema.itrsgroup.com/GA2011.2-110303/netprobe.xsd">
   <selfAnnounce>
      <enabled>true</enabled>
      <probeName>Probe</probeName>
      <managedEntity>
         <name>ME</name>
         <types>
            <type>HW</type>
         </types>
      </managedEntity>
      <gateways>
         <gateway>
            <hostname>localhost</hostname>
            <port>7038</port>
            <secure>true</secure>
         </gateway>
      </gateways>
   </selfAnnounce>
</netprobe>

Web Dashboard Copied

Web Dashboard is able to connect to both secure and insecure gateways. To connect to a secure gateway, use the Configuration > Connections menu in the application and tick the Secure checkbox when adding a connection.

SSL Web Dashboard

Alternatively, you can edit config.xml and add a secure tag as shown below.

...
<gatewayConnections>
     <gatewayConnection name="Gateway 1">
         <enabled>true</enabled>
         <secure>true</secure>
         <primary>
             <host>gateway-host</host>
             <port>7039</port>
         </primary>
         <secondary>
             <host>gateway-host-2</host>
             <port>7040</port>
         </secondary>
         <description/>
         <user/>
         <password/>
     </gatewayConnection>
             ...
</gatewayConnections>
...

Webslinger Copied

Webslinger is able to connect to both secure and insecure gateways. It has two different lines in its configuration file for connections. Those that start GATEWAY=are used to specify connections to insecure gateways, while those that startSECURE\_GATEWAY= are used to connect to secure gateways.

Auditor Copied

Auditor is able to connect to both secure and insecure gateways. It has two different lines in its configuration file for connections. Those that start GATEWAY=are used to specify connections to insecure gateways, while those that startSECURE\_GATEWAY= are used to connect to secure gateways.

Validating Geneos Components Copied

As well as specifying the TLS certificates to use when creating a secure connection, some Geneos components support the verification of certificates used by the other party. This is done by providing a key chain of signing certificates via a PEM file to the Geneos component. This file is specified using the -ssl-certificate-chain command line option.

-ssl-certificate-chain <file>

The following Geneos components support this feature:

The Geneos component will check that all certificates presented to it during the establishment of a secure connection were signed by one of the signing certificates in the chain.

When a client connects to a server securely, the server must provide its certificate in order for a secure connection to be established. The client will always verify this certificate against it’s certificate chain (if it was provided one). If the certificate cannot be verified then the connection will be rejected.

When a server is connected securely to by a client, the client does not need to provide a certificate to the server. A Geneos component will provide this certificate if it has one but other clients (web browsers, API clients) may not. If the client does provided a certificate and the server has been provided with a chain of signing certificates, then the server will verify the client’s certificate against its certificate chain and reject the connection if the certificate cannot be verified. If the client does not provide a certificate, the server has nothing to check and will accept the secure connection.

Some Geneos servers can be configured to require that certificates are provided for certain types of connection. Currently the gateway and netprobe provide this functionality.

The netprobe can be configured to ensure that all incoming EMF2 connections to be established with a certificate. This allows the netprobes to ensure that they only accept connections from machines whose SSL certificate has been signed by the certificate authority used by the netprobe to verify certificates.

This is enabled by using the command line option with EMF2 as the argument:

-require-ssl-certificate-for emf2

If this setting is enabled then all Geneos components connecting to the netprobe will be required to provide a valid certificate. (There is one exception which is netprobes connection using the XMLRPC protocol which can be enabled as part of the Message Tracker plugin).

The gateway can be configured to ensure that require certificates for different incoming Geneos components. These are netprobes, secondary gateways and importing gateways. The requirements are controlled from a section of the gateway setup. (In the Operating Enviroment section under the Connections tab)

Note

If either gateway or netprobe require certificates for an incoming connection of a specific type, then all insecure connections of the specified type will be rejected as insecure connections do not provide a certificate.

Debugging Client Connections Copied

If an error occurs connecting to a secure server, the server log is the place to look to understand the issue. The server is sent a message, and even if the message is sent to the incorrect port it can try to identify the type and place a useful message in its log.

Server log messages for a client trying to connect insecurely to a server using its secure port. This will occur both for SSL aware clients that have been mis-configured and old clients that predate the SSL enhancement:

ERROR: SSLConnector:accept SSL Error:[1408f10b] SSL3_GET_RECORD:wrong version number
WARN: SSLConnector:accept Possible attempt to connect insecurely to a secure port

Server log messages for a client trying to connect securely to a server using its insecure port:

ERROR: CONNECTOR ERROR: Secure Connection from '...' received on insecure port. Dropping connection

If the server being connected to is old and predates SSL support then the server will not print any log message. The SSL handshake will time out because the server has not responded correctly to the client. In this case there will be an error in the client log of the form:

ERROR: SSLConnector SSL Connection(=>127.0.0.1:19067) failed to complete handshake in 70s : Dropping connection

Connection details on Geneos Copied

This section covers the list of all incoming connections from and outgoing connections to each component of Geneos. Also, this list identifies if the components require an SSL encryption or not, and other information relevant to Geneos connections.

Incoming connections Copied

Component Incoming connection from SSL encryption SSL verification of connecting components Port Service

Source IP

Destination IP Purpose
Netprobe Gateway (tick)

User-defined

Default: 7036

Netprobe Any Gateway node Any Netprobe node Netprobe-Gateway communication (normal probes). This supports two-way SSL verification.
Netprobe ORB debug page (tick) N/A Same as listen port for Netprobe

Default: 7036

ORB debug Web browser Any Netprobe node ORB debug
Plugins API Plug-in (XML-RPC) (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 7036

Netprobe XML-RPC API Any external client Any Netprobe node Manipulates dataviews using XML-RPC API
Plugins REST API (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: HTTP-only server at port 7136

Netprobe REST API Any external client Any Netprobe node Manipulate dataviews and streams using Netprobe REST API
Plugins Message Tracker plugin real-time Checkpoint (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 7036

Netprobe XML-RPC API Any external client Any Netprobe node External real-time checkpoint for Message Tracker
Plugins Message Tracker plugin XML-RPC Source (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 7036

Netprobe XML-RPC API Any external client Any Netprobe node External data source for Message Tracker
Plugins Trapmon N/A N/A

On Unix: User-defined

Default: 162

On Windows: None

SNMP Any external client Any Netprobe node Monitors incoming SNMP traps
File Agent Fix Analyser 2 Netprobe (tick) (tick)

User-defined

Default: 7030

File Agent Any FIX Analyser 2Netprobe Any File Agent node Sends contents of monitored files
File Agent ORB debug page N/A N/A Same as listen port for Gateway

Default: 7030

ORB debug Web browser Any File Agent node ORB debug
FIX Analyser 2 Netprobe Gateway (tick) (tick)

User-defined

Default: 7030

Fix Analyser 2 Netprobe Any Gateway node Any FIX Analyser 2 Netprobe node Fix Analyser 2 Netprobe-Gateway communication
FIX Analyser 2 Netprobe ORB debug page (tick) N/A Same as listen port for Gateway

Default: 7030

ORB debug Web browser Any FIX Analyser 2 Netprobe node ORB debug
FIX Analyser 2 Netprobe Order reports browser interface N/A N/A Same as listen port for Gateway

Default: 7030

HTTP Web browser or Active Console Any FIX Analyser 2 Netprobe node Provides HTML-based report regarding FIX orders
Gateway Self-Announcing Netprobe (tick) (tick)

User-defined

Default: 7039

Netprobe Any Self-Announcing Netprobe Any Gateway node Netprobe-Gateway communication (SAN probes). This supports two-way SSL verification
Gateway Floating Netprobe (tick) (tick)

User-defined

Default: 7039

Netprobe Any Floating Probe Any Gateway node Netprobe-Gateway communication (Floating probes). This supports two-way SSL verification
Gateway Active Console (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 7039

Gateway Client (Active Console and GSE) Any Active Console or GSE Any Gateway node Active Console-Gateway communication
Gateway Gateway Sharing (tick) (tick)

User-defined

Default: 7039

Gateway Sharing Any Gateway node Any Gateway node Gateway sharing. This supports two-way SSL verification
Gateway Web Dashboard (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 7039

Gateway Client (Web Dashboard) Any Web Dashboard Any Gateway node Web Dashboard-Gateway communications
Gateway Webslinger (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 7039

Gateway Client (Webslinger) Any Webslinger Any Gateway node Webslinger-Gateway communications
Gateway ORB debug page (tick) N/A Same as listen port for Gateway

Default: 7039

ORB debug Web browser Any Gateway node ORB debug
Gateway Gateway as Web server (tick) N/A Same as listen port for Gateway

Default: 7039

HTTP serving of static pages Web browser Any Gateway node Serving of helper pages (Knowledge base)
Gateway Gateway REST Command (tick) N/A Same as listen port for Gateway

Default: 7039

REST API for commands and other REST services Any external client Any Gateway node Running commands through REST
Active Console ORB debug page (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 7040

ORB Debug Web browser Active Console host ORB debug
Web Dashboard Browser interface (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 8080

Web Dashboard Web browser Web Dashboard host Web Dashboard application
Web Dashboard JMX metrics (tick) N/A User-defined JMX port (run script specifies 50505) JMX client JMX client node Web Dashboard host JMX monitoring
Webslinger Browser interface (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 8080

Webslinger Web browser Webslinger host Webslinger application
Licence Daemon Gateway (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 7041

Licence Daemon Gateway node Licence Daemon node Get licences
Licence Daemon Browser interface (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 7041

Licence Daemon reporting Web browser Licence Daemon node Get licence details
SSO Agent Active Console (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 8080

SSO Agent Active Console node SSO Agent node SSO Agent application
SSO Agent Web Dashboard (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 8080

SSO Agent Web Dashboard node SSO Agent node SSO Agent application
SSO Agent Webslinger (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 8080

SSO Agent Webslinger node SSO Agent node SSO Agent application
SSO Agent Gateway (tick) N/A

User-defined

Default: 8080

SSO Agent Gateway node SSO Agent node SSO Agent application
Collection Agent Health check N/A N/A

User-defined

Default: 9136

Collection Agent health check Netprobe node Collection Agent node Collection Agent health check
Collection Agent plugins Health check N/A N/A

User-defined

Default: 8125

StatsD server StatsD client node Collection Agent node Publishing for StatsD clients

Outgoing connections Copied

Component Outgoing connection to SSL encryption SSL verification of connecting components Port Service

Source IP

Destination IP Purpose
Netprobe Gateway (tick) (tick) User-defined Gateway Any Netprobe node Any Gateway node Netprobe-Gateway communication (Self-Announcing Netprobes and floating probes). This supports two-way SSL verification.
Netprobe SAN/Floating config from URL (tick) (tick) User-defined HTTP/HTTPS Any Netprobe node Any Web server Gets the Netprobe setup file from a Web server
Plugins Bloomberg-bpipe N/A N/A

User-defined

Default: 8194

B-PIPE Any Netprobe node Bloomberg B-PIPE server Bloomberg monitoring
Plugins Control-M (tick) (tick) User-defined HTTPS Any Netprobe node Any Control-M server Gets information regarding jobs in a Control-M sever (only the built-in plug-in for REST API version)
Plugins E4JMS (Tibco EMS) (tick) N/A User-defined EMS server port Any Netprobe node Any Tibco EMS server Monitors Tibco EMS server
Plugins IBM-i plugins N/A N/A Refer to JT400 Ports Refer to JT400 Ports Any Netprobe node IBM-i node Monitors IBM-i
Plugins JMX Server N/A N/A User-defined JMX Any external client Any server running an JMX-enabled application
Plugins JMX ThreadInfo N/A N/A User-defined JMX Any external client Any server running an JMX-enabled application
Plugins Mibmon N/A N/A

User-defined

Default: 161

SNMP Any Netprobe node Any SNMP server Gets the MIBS information from a SNMP server
Plugins MQ (IBM MQ) N/A N/A User-defined MQ Any Netprobe node MQ server Gets information from MQ server
Plugins Oracle N/A N/A User-defined Database Any Netprobe node Any database server Performs queries on a database
Plugins REST Extractor (tick) N/A User-defined HTTP/HTTPS Any Netprobe node Any web server Performs queries on a database
Plugins SQL Toolkit N/A N/A

User-defined

Default for MySQL, SQL Server, Postgre SQL: 3306

Database Any Netprobe node Any web server Performs queries on a database
Plugins Sybase N/A N/A User-defined Database Any Netprobe node Any database server Performs queries on a database
Plugins Web-mon N/A N/A

User-defined

Default on HTTP: 80

Default on HTTPS: 443

HTTP/HTTPS Any Netprobe node Any web server Performs queries on a database
Plugins Publisher (tick) N/A User-defined Elasticsearch Any Netprobe node Elasticsearch server Publishes data to Elasticsearch
FIX Analyser 2 Netprobe Database N/A N/A User-defined MySQL Any Fix Analyser 2 Netprobe Any MySQL server Augments HTML-based order reports to display drill-down message level data
FIX Analyser 2Netprobe File Agent N/A N/A

User-defined

Default: 7030

File Agent Any FIX Analyser 2Netprobe Any File Agent node Sends contents of monitored files
Gateway Netprobe (tick) (tick) User-defined Netprobe Any Gateway Any Netprobe Netprobe-Gateway communication
Gateway Licence Daemon (tick) (tick) User-defined License Server Any Gateway Any Licence Daemon Requests licenses for Gateway and its probes and samplers
Gateway Database Logging N/A N/A User-defined Database Any Gateway Any database server Inserts data on the database
Gateway Valo Stream Data Plug-in
Gateway Kafka (Publishing) (tick) N/A User-defined Kafka Any Gateway Any Kafka server Pushes Geneos metrics into Kafka queues
Gateway Remote Include files (tick) N/A User-defined HTTP/HTTPS Any Gateway Any web server Requests remote include files
Gateway Gateway Sharing (tick) (tick) User-defined Gateway Any Gateway Any Gateway node Shares Gateway data
Gateway Gateway Hub N/A N/A User-defined

Gateway Hub (Publishing)

Gateway Hub REST (HTTP/HTTPS)

Any Gateway Any Gateway node Interacts with Gateway Hub
Gateway Hub Kafka (Publishing) (tick) N/A User-defined Kafka Any Gateway Hub node Any Kafka server External Kafka Publishing
Active Console Gateway (tick) N/A User-defined Gateway Active Console node Any Gateway Hub node Connection to secure Gateways
Active Console Database (tick) N/A User-defined Database Active Console node Any Gateway Hub node
Active Console Gateway Hub (tick) N/A User-defined Gateway Hub Rest (HTTP/HTTPS) Active Console node Any Gateway Hub node
Web Dashboard Gateway (tick) (tick) User-defined Gateway Web Dashboard node Any Gateway Hub node Supports two-way SSL authentication
Webslinger Gateway (tick) (tick) User-defined Gateway Webslinger node Any Gateway Hub node
SSO Agent AD server (tick) N/A User-defined AD service SSO Agent node Active Directory server Gets user details and permissions from Active Directory

Web services Copied

Certain Geneos Components provide web services. These web services can be accessed via HTTP or HTTPS depending on whether the service is published on a secure or an insecure port. Any web service that is published via the same port that is used for EMF connections will inherit the security settings from the EMF settings. So, for example if a netprobe is started with the -secure flag, then its web services will also be secure. The ORB debug pages will only be viewable via HTTPS. XML-API connections to the probe will need to use HTTPS rather than HTTP.

Hot Standby Gateways Copied

Hot standby gateways connect to one another using Geneos’ EMF protocol. If one gateway is configured to use TLS security then both must be. If a secondary gateway is configured to listen on a secure port, then when it is connecting to the primary gateway it will attempt to connect securely. If the primary gateway is not also configured to listen on a secure port then the gateway will fail to connect.

Load balancers Copied

Geneos client components using the Geneos EMF protocol supply a Server Name Indication (SNI) in their TLS ClientHello message, except when the destination address is a numeric IP or localhost.

Providing an SNI allows routing components such as load balancers or ingress servers to identify the target destination. Many routing components are able to use this information to route TLS connections correctly.

Examples Copied

Two setups are provided to show how to setup Secure communications between Geneos components. In order to try these examples you will need a gateway, netprobe and Active console, all of version 3.1.X or higher. You will also need a copy of openssl to generate a set of certificates.

Note

This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org).

Following this example you will generate a pair of self signed certificates, however in production it is assumed that genuine certificates signed by a recognised certificate authority will be used.

Example 1 Copied

Example 1 has a Netprobe and Gateway running on the same Linux machine, and a Active Console connected to them.

If you are running a different platform, replace the names of the Gateway and Netprobe binaries in the commands below with its corresponding platform binary.

First, create a pair of certificates using OpenSSL. One for the Netprobe (np.pem) and one for the Gateway (gw.pem).

Generate your own Self signed Certificate Authority:

> openssl genrsa -out rootCA.key 2048
> openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key rootCA.key -days 1024 -out rootCA.pem -subj "/CN=certificateAuthority"

Generate a certificate for your Netprobe:

> openssl genrsa -out np.key 2048
> openssl req -new -key np.key -out np.csr -subj "/CN=<Netprobe server host name>"
> openssl x509 -req -in np.csr -CA rootCA.pem -CAkey rootCA.key -CAcreateserial -out np.crt -days 30
> cat np.crt np.key > np.pem

For the common name ("/CN= "), specify the Netprobe server host name, without the angle brackets.

Generate a certificate for your Gateway:

> openssl genrsa -out gw.key 2048
> openssl req -new -key gw.key -out gw.csr -subj "/CN=<Gateway server host name>"
> openssl x509 -req -in gw.csr -CA rootCA.pem -CAkey rootCA.key -CAcreateserial -out gw.crt -days 30
> cat gw.crt gw.key > gw.pem

For the common name ("/CN= "), specify the Gateway server host name, without the angle brackets.

Next, copy the setup (eg1.setup.xml) into the Gateway directory, the newly generated certificate (gw.pem), and the certificate of the CA (rootCA.pem). Then, start the Gateway as follows (replace <LICD-HOST> by the location of your Licence Daemon).

> gateway2.linux -setup eg1.setup.xml -licd-host <LICD-HOST> -ssl-certificate ./gw.pem -ssl-certificate-chain ./rootCA.pem

This will start a directory running on the default port. You can connect to this gateway using the Active Console. Note that you will have to tick the Secure Connection option in the gateway connections dialog as the gateway has been configured only to listen on a secure port. See below:

ssl-02

You should find that you are connected to the gateway (which will be red). Looking at the Gateway Managed Entity you will see in the client view that the Active Console has connected securely to the gateway.

ssl-05

Looking at the GW view you will see that there are two gateway ports are listed. The insecurePort is set to 7039, indicating that the gateway is listening insecurely on that default insecure port, while the securePort value is 7038 indicating that the gateway is listening securely on the default secure gateway port.

ssl-06

Now you can start the netprobe. Copy the netprobe certificate (np.pem) and the certificate of the CA (rootCA.pem) into the netprobe directory start the netprobe by typing;

> netprobe.linux -ssl-certificate ./np.pem -secure -ssl-certificate-chain ./rootCA.pem

The gateway will now connect to the probe and go green. If you now look Probes view on the Gateway Managed Entity you will see that the gateway has connected to the probe and the connection is secure.

ssl-07

The netprobe is now connected and all the netprobe functionality is available to the user via the gateway and the Active Console.

Example 2 Copied

Example 2 has a netprobe and gateway running on the same computer, and a Active Console connected to them.

The difference is that the netprobe is configured to be a self announcing netprobe and so the netprobe will not require a certificate in order to perform secure communications. Agian all 3 componenets will need to be version 3.1.X or better. The assumption is that you are using the linux version of the gateway and netprobe.

If you use a different version, please replace the names of the gateway and netprobe binaries in the commands below with the ones appropriate for your system.

Please follow the instructions from Example 1 to create the key pairs (you will only be using the gw.pem key pair).

Next copy the setup (eg2.setup.xml) into the gateway directory and the newly generated certificate (gw.pem). Now start the gateway as follows (please replace by the location of your licence daemon);

> gateway2.linux -setup eg2.setup.xml -licd-host <LICD-HOST> -ssl-certificate ./gw.pem

This will start a directory running on the default port. You can connect to this gateway using the Active Console. Note that you will have to tick the Secure Connection option in the gateway connections dialog as the gateway has been configured only to listen on a secure port. See below:

ssl-02

You should find that you are connected to the gateway. Looking at the Gateway Managed Entity you will see in the client view that the Active Console has connected securely to the gateway.

ssl-08

Looking at the GW view you will see that there are two gateway ports are listed, just as in example 1. The insecurePort is set to 7039, indicating that the gateway is listening insecurely on that default insecure port, while the securePort value is 7038 indicating that the gateway is listening securely on the default secure gateway port.

ssl-09

Now you can start the self-announcing netprobe. Copy the netprobe setup from (eg2_np.setup.xml) into the netprobe directory and start the netprobe by typing;

> netprobe.linux -setup eg2_np.setup.xml

Looking at eg2.np.xml you will see that the gateway section specifies to connect securely to the gateway on port 7038.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<netprobe
   compatibility= 
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://schema.itrsgroup.com/GA2011.2-110303/netprobe.xsd">
   <selfAnnounce>
      <enabled>true</enabled>
      <retryInterval>20</retryInterval>
      <probeName>Probe</probeName>
      <managedEntity>
         <name>ME</name>
         <types>
            <type>HW</type>
         </types>
      </managedEntity>
      <gateways>
         <gateway>
            <hostname>localhost</hostname>
            <port>7038</port>
            <secure>true</secure>
         </gateway>
      </gateways>
   </selfAnnounce>
</netprobe>

The Netprobe will connect to the gateway and a new row will appear in the Probes view indicating that a new Self-Announcing probe has connected and that it is connected securely.

ssl-10

Get the fingerprint and subject of an SSL Certificate Copied

When connecting to the Gateway an SSL Identity may be required for authentication if an SSL Certificate is used. The identity can be the fingerprint or subject of an SSL Certificate. How to generate a fingerprint or subject (using Webslinger as an example) is shown below:

Fingerprint generation Copied

> openssl x509 -in webslinger.pem -fingerprint -noout | sed 's/://g'
SHA1 Fingerprint=78B6CE43DF1D8C7A62BEAFFC988AFFA1EFC9DC7C

The fingerprint is all characters after ‘=’. Copy this to the Gateway config.

Subject generation Copied

> openssl x509 -in webslinger.pem -subject -noout
subject= /CN=Webslinger/C=UK/L=London/O=ITRS

The subject is all characters after “subject= “. Ensure there are no leading or trailing spaces. Copy this to the Gateway config.

["Geneos"] ["Geneos > Gateway"] ["User Guide", "Technical Reference"]

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