Security certificate automation options

Implementing certificate automation

Now that you've gained a full understanding of SSL/TLS certificate management and the benefits of automation, it's time to get started with certificate automation.

1. Assess your current certificate management processes to identify areas where manual intervention is time-consuming, error-prone, or inefficient. Assess the scope of automation and the potential benefits it can bring to your organisation.
2. Educate your team and share the knowledge gained from this toolkit with your IT team and stakeholders. Ensure that everyone understands the importance of certificate automation and its potential impact on security, efficiency, and compliance.
3. Select automation tools such as CertBot, Ansible, and other solutions that align with your needs and infrastructure. Consider factors such as ease of use, compatibility with your systems, and support for industry standards like the ACME protocol.
4. Develop an implementation plan that outlines the steps involved in automating certificate management. Define roles and responsibilities, set realistic timelines, and allocate resources as needed. Consider conducting pilot projects to test automation workflows before full deployment.
5. Train your and provide resources to your IT team to ensure they have the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively implement and maintain certificate automation solutions. Leverage online tutorials, documentation, and vendor support to enhance their skills.
6. Monitor and fine-tune once automation is in place. Track key metrics such as certificate issuance, renewal rates, and system uptime. Identify areas for improvement and fine-tune automation workflows to optimize results.
7. Stay informed and updated on industry trends, best practices, and emerging technologies related to certificate management and automation. Engage with community forums, attend webinars, and take part in training sessions to stay informed and improve your certificate management practices.
8. Share your success stories and lessons learned as you progress with certificate automation. Contribute to knowledge-sharing platforms, participate in industry events, and collaborate with peers to foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.

How do I know which tool is best for me?

Before deciding which tool to use, you need to survey your certificate estate. This can help you to understand where, when and how you are using certificates across all your servers and applications.

You'll need to analyse where you are using public facing certificates and if the systems are capable of using the ACME protocol for automation.

ACME

To use ACME you need a certificate provider such as Sectigo (used by the Jisc certificate service) that is ACME compliant. You'll also need to be using the certificate in a ACME supported service such as single domain sites on Apache or IS.

If you are using Sectigo certificates on services not supported by CertBot, you might still consider CertBot to get the initial certificate. You’ll then need to provide a means to put the certificate in place.

How to use ACME and CertBot

Ansible

If you are using a non-ACME supported service you will need to use some form of orchestration tool to automate the implementation of a certificate.

Ansible is a ‘Swiss army knife’ that enables a variety of flexible automation options. It is free to use but it is more complicated to deploy.

In this case, some useful features of Ansible are:

• It has ACME modules you could use to obtain certificates
• It will support any other web requests so could configure it to pull a certificate from any URL then do any validation and processing required
• It has integration modules for various proprietary devices and these provide features to push certificates to these services
  • Kemp
  • F5
  • Palo Alto
  • Forti

This list is not exhaustive but demonstrates Ansible’s broad support.

How to use Ansible

Using a combination of CertBot and Ansible

You can also pull certificates to a central repository using CertBot. Then you can use Certbot hooks to trigger Ansible scripts to push certificates to proprietary services

Find out how to do this using CertBot