This recipe automates the common task of managing x509 certificates and keys from encrypted Data Bags. This cookbook provides a flexible and reusable resource to set up certificates from various sources.

Pulling data from Chef Vault is not supported when using chef-solo, and will result in a failure condition.

The stub files in test/integration are for testing only and should not be used in production. These files include a self-signed "snake oil" certificate/key and an encrypted_data_bag_secret file which are not secure to use beyond testing.

The certificate strings in the data bag need all newlines replaced with literal \ns. This conversion can be done with a Ruby one-liner:

ruby -e 'p ARGF.read' <filename>

This will turn the input file from the normal certificate format:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIEEDCCA3mgAwIBAgIJAO4rOcmpIFmPMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBBQUAMIG3MQswCQYD
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Into this:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nMIIEEDCCA3mgAwIBAgIJAO4rOcmpIFmPMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBBQUAMIG3MQswCQYD\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Add the converted certificate / chain / key to the desired databag, attributes, or Chef Vault store:

{
  "id": "example",
  "cert": "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nCertificate Here...",
  "key": "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY\nPrivate Key Here...",
  "chain": "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nCA Root Chain Here..."
}

The chain entry may be optional if the CA's root chain is already trusted by the server.

This cookbook comes with three simple example recipes for using the certificate_manage LWRP.

Creates certificates from the data bag item certificates/$HOSTNAME.

Same as the default recipe, except for the data bag item name is wildcard instead of the node hostname.

The resulting files will be named wildcard.pem (cert), wildcard.key (key), and wildcard-bundle.crt (CA Root chain)

Defines certificate_manage resources dynamically from node attributes.

node['certificate'] = [
  {
    'foo' => {
      data_bag_type: 'none',
      plaintext_cert: 'plain_cert',
      plaintext_key: 'plain_key',
      plaintext_chain: 'plain_chain',
    }
  },
  {'test' => {}},
]

certificate_manage 'foo' do
  data_bag_type 'none'
  plaintext_cert 'plain_cert'
  plaintext_key 'plain_key'
  plaintext_chain 'plain_chain'
end

certificate_manage 'test'

Sets up certificates from data bags or Chef Vault stores.

The following example will place certificates defined in the certificates/mail data bag item under /etc/postfix/ssl owned by postfix.

certificate_manage "mail" do
  cert_path "/etc/postfix/ssl"
  owner "postfix"
  group "postfix"
end

Some helper methods are exposed for retrieving key/certificate paths in other recipes:

• .certificate - The final path of the certificate file. i.e. #{cert_path}/certs/#{cert_file}
• .key - The final path of the key file. i.e. #{cert_path}/private/#{key_file}
• .chain - The final path of the chain file. i.e. #{cert_path}/certs/#{chain_file}

# where node.fqdn = 'example.com'
tld = certificate_manage 'top_level_domain'
tld_cert_location = tld.certificate # => /etc/ssl/certs/example.com.pem

# where node.fqdn = 'sub.example.com'
sbd = certificate_manage 'sub_domain' do
  cert_path '/bobs/emporium'
  create_subfolders false
end
sbd_cert_location = sbd.key # => /bobs/emporium/sub.example.com.key

If the FQDN of the node is updated during converge, be sure to use lazy attribute evaluation to ensure node['fqdn'] refers to the updated value.

certificate_manage "wildcard" do
  cert_file lazy { "#{node['fqdn']}.pem" }
  key_file lazy { "#{node['fqdn']}.key" }
  chain_file lazy { "#{node['fqdn']}-bundle.crt" }
end

The none option does not use a data bag, requiring the certificate, key, and/or chain to be passed directly to the resource. This allows you to use the certificate_manage resource for all of your certificate needs, even if the certificate data is stored in an unsupported location.

certificate_manage "fqdn-none-plaintext" do
  cert_file lazy { "#{node['fqdn']}.pem" }
  key_file lazy { "#{node['fqdn']}.key" }
  chain_file lazy { "#{node['fqdn']}-bundle.crt" }
  data_bag_type 'none'
  plaintext_cert "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\n...\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----\n\n"
  plaintext_key "-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\n...\n-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\n\n",
  plaintext_chain "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\n...\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----\n\n",
end

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