When one of my friends called telling me that he had accidentally deleted some important files from his drive, his exasperation was understandable. It happens to everyone at some point of their computer-using lives. Unfortunately, in his case, those were some extremely important documents that, had he not recovered them, could have proven very costly.
Version 2.0 of the Open Definition has been announced. The Open Definition seeks to define the meaning of “open” in the context of data, content, and more. “However, these benefits are at significant risk both from quality problems such as ‘open-washing’ (non-open data being passed off as open) and from fragmentation of the open data ecosystem due to incompatibility between the growing number of ‘open’ licenses. The Open Definition eliminates these risks and ensures we realize the full benefits of open by guaranteeing quality and preventing incompatibility.“
Alex Deucher of AMD has taken the floor at XDC2014, which got underway today in France to provide an update on the company’s new unified open-source driver strategy. Compared to what I originally reported earlier in the year when breaking the news, there’s some notable changes but overall this is an exciting endeavor for AMD Linux customers with the open and closed source AMD GPU drivers going to share the same (open-source) Linux kernel driver.
Our hardware friends at TYAN have announced their first customer reference system built around OpenPOWER, the collaboration around IBM’s Power Architecture with the Power ISA and other technology being opened up. TYAN’s “Palmetto System” is promoted as being innovative, collaborative, and open…
Besides Greg KH sending in the USB changes for Linux 3.18 he also sent in the driver core changes for the 3.18 merge window. With the driver core patches this time around is a notable change for benefiting developers to ultimately better debug wireless and GPU driver issues…
In this special guest feature, Penguin Computing Chief Technology Officer Phil Pokorny writes that Open Compute Project has great potential to spark HPC innovation. In just three and a half years since Facebook announced the Open Compute Project (OCP), the cooperative industry effort is showing exceptional progress toward delivering significantly more efficient hardware into the […]
The post Open Compute Project Spurs HPC Innovation for Large and Small Organizations appeared first on insideHPC.
Michael DeHaan is CTO and co-founder of the configuration management tool Ansible. In my interview with him prior to the All Things Open conference in October where he’ll be speaking, Michael tells me about what it’s like to work in open source tech.
On Monday I wrote about AMD adding native object code support to their Radeon Gallium3D drivers and Clover. Besides being a huge performance win for OpenCL kernel compile times, this work is also instrumental as part of AMD’s open-source HSA Linux plans…
Last week’s launch of OPNFV is a good opportunity to think about a simmering debate in the OpenStack developer community for a while now—what exactly does NFV (Network Function Virtualization) have to do with OpenStack, and is it a good thing?
The tutorial is organized as follows:
Section 1, Creating self-signed certificates describes how to create the required certificates to encrypt and authenticate the connection between your logserver and your clients. Actually, you can use this part of the tutorial even if you do not use syslog-ng OSE, as it is independent from the logging application you use.
Section 2, Configuring syslog-ng OSE describes how to configure syslog-ng OSE on your clients and your logserver.
Procedure 3, Testing gives you tips on how to test your configuration to make sure it is really working.
TLS-encryption uses certificates to authenticate the server, and in case of mutual authentication, the client as well. The following sections show you how to create the required certificates.
To use mutual authentication in syslog-ng OSE, certificates are required. There are several commercial certificate authorities (CAs) who can help you, but the process costs both money and time (waiting until the submitted certificate is signed). This guide demonstrates how to create your very own Certificate Authority (CA) for creating self-signed certificates. It does not cover all the details, for example, changing expiration dates, only the minimally required steps to be able to use mutual authentication in syslog-ng OSE.
There are handy tools, such as CA.pl, which can make certificate creation and signing easier, but they are not available on all platforms, even if it is part of the OpenSSL software suite. On the other hand, the OpenSSL command line tool is available on all Linux distributions and BSD variants, so this tool will be used in the guide.
Purpose:
To create a CA, complete the following steps:
Steps:
Create an empty directory and navigate into that directory:
mkdir CA
cd CA
Create a few directories and give starting values to some support files:
mkdir certs crl newcerts private
echo "01" > serial
cp /dev/null index.txt
Copy openssl.conf to the current directory. Depending on your distributions, the source directory might be different, so check the list of files in the OpenSSL package before copying:
cp /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf openssl.cnf
Edit openssl.conf in the current directory:
vi openssl.cnf
Search for the following part and replace ./DemoCA with a single dot:
[ CA_default ] dir = ./demoCA # Where everything is kept certs = $dir/certs # Where the issued certs are kept
Change it to:
[ CA_default ] dir = . # Where everything is kept certs = $dir/certs # Where the issued certs are kept
As a last step, generate the certificate for the CA:
openssl req -new -x509 -keyout private/cakey.pem -out cacert.pem -days 365 -config openssl.cnf
The following will be displayed. Answer the questions as in the example:
Generating a 1024 bit RSA private key .++++++ ......................++++++ writing new private key to 'private/cakey.pem' Enter PEM pass phrase: Verifying - Enter PEM pass phrase: ----- You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request. What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN. There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank For some fields there will be a default value, If you enter '.', the field will be left blank. ----- Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:HU State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Budapest Locality Name (eg, city) []:Budapest Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:BalaBit Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:. Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:Peter Czanik Email Address []: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Purpose:
To create a server certificate, complete the following steps:
Steps:
The next step is to create and sign a certificate for your syslog-ng OSE server. The common name should contain the FQDN or IP address of your server, and the e-mail address should be left blank.
openssl req -nodes -new -x509 -keyout serverkey.pem -out serverreq.pem -days 365 -config openssl.cnf
The following will be displayed. Answer the questions as in the example:
Generating a 1024 bit RSA private key
........................................++++++
.++++++
writing new private key to 'serverkey.pem'
-----
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:HU
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Budapest
Locality Name (eg, city) []:Budapest
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:BalaBit
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:.
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:172.16.177.147
Email Address []:
czanik@linux-modi:~/CA>; openssl x509 -x509toreq -in serverreq.pem -signkey serverkey.pem -out tmp.pem
Getting request Private Key
Generating certificate request
czanik@linux-modi:~/CA>; openssl ca -config openssl.cnf -policy policy_anything -out servercert.pem -infiles tmp.pem
Using configuration from openssl.cnf
Enter pass phrase for ./private/cakey.pem:
Check that the request matches the signature
Signature ok
Certificate Details:
Serial Number: 1 (0x1)
Validity
Not Before: Jun 25 10:27:39 2014 GMT
Not After : Jun 25 10:27:39 2015 GMT
Subject:
countryName = HU
stateOrProvinceName = Budapest
localityName = Budapest
organizationName = BalaBit
commonName = 172.16.177.147
X509v3 extensions:
X509v3 Basic Constraints:
CA:FALSE
Netscape Comment:
OpenSSL Generated Certificate
X509v3 Subject Key Identifier:
55:4E:B1:47:33:CF:0C:83:5F:29:64:9B:E9:99:77:DF:0E:72:52:76
X509v3 Authority Key Identifier:
keyid:D1:FF:ED:B4:0B:66:E6:45:EE:70:4F:DC:6C:C5:34:48:42:38:E9:38
Certificate is to be certified until Jun 25 10:27:39 2015 GMT (365 days)
Sign the certificate? [y/n]:y
1 out of 1 certificate requests certified, commit? [y/n]y
Write out database with 1 new entries
Data Base Updated
Enter the following:
rm tmp.pem
Purpose:
To create a client certificate, complete the following steps:
Steps:
The steps for the client(s) are very similar, only the file names and the embedded common name (host identifier: FQDN or IP address) are different. If you have multiple clients, make sure that each has the right host identifier.
openssl req -nodes -new -x509 -keyout clientkey.pem -out clientreq.pem -days 365 -config openssl.cnf
The following will be displayed. Answer the questions as in the example:
Generating a 1024 bit RSA private key
.................................................................................++++++
...............................++++++
writing new private key to 'clientkey.pem'
-----
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:HU
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Budapest
Locality Name (eg, city) []:Budapest
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:BalaBit
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:.
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:172.16.177.129
Email Address []:
czanik@linux-modi:~/CA>; openssl x509 -x509toreq -in clientreq.pem -signkey clientkey.pem -out tmp.pem
Getting request Private Key
Generating certificate request
czanik@linux-modi:~/CA>; openssl ca -config openssl.cnf -policy policy_anything -out clientcert.pem -infiles tmp.pem
Using configuration from openssl.cnf
Enter pass phrase for ./private/cakey.pem:
Check that the request matches the signature
Signature ok
Certificate Details:
Serial Number: 2 (0x2)
Validity
Not Before: Jun 25 10:28:49 2014 GMT
Not After : Jun 25 10:28:49 2015 GMT
Subject:
countryName = HU
stateOrProvinceName = Budapest
localityName = Budapest
organizationName = BalaBit
commonName = 172.16.177.129
X509v3 extensions:
X509v3 Basic Constraints:
CA:FALSE
Netscape Comment:
OpenSSL Generated Certificate
X509v3 Subject Key Identifier:
91:D9:99:95:F2:0D:22:BF:72:95:56:9A:C0:DF:A3:07:5C:E2:3F:63
X509v3 Authority Key Identifier:
keyid:D1:FF:ED:B4:0B:66:E6:45:EE:70:4F:DC:6C:C5:34:48:42:38:E9:38
Certificate is to be certified until Jun 25 10:28:49 2015 GMT (365 days)
Sign the certificate? [y/n]:y
1 out of 1 certificate requests certified, commit? [y/n]y
Write out database with 1 new entries
Data Base Updated
Enter the following:
rm tmp.pem
Once you are ready with generating CA, server and client certificates, copy them to the respective machines and configure syslog-ng OSE to use them. In theory, the CA and other certificates could be placed anywhere in the file system. In practice, server applications, such as syslog-ng OSEare often protected by AppArmor, SELinux or other mechanisms, therefore it is recommended to create sub-directories where the syslog-ng.conf resides. This way syslog-ng OSE can read them without modifying the related access rules.
Purpose:
In the following example syslog-ng.conf is under /usr/local/etc/syslog-ng, but it could be /opt/syslog-ng/etc/, /etc/syslog-ng/ or any other directory in your system, so adopt the configuration example accordingly.
Steps:
As a first step, create two new directories under the syslog-ng OSE configuration directory:
mkdir cert.d ca.d
Copy serverkey.pem and servercert.pem to cert.d. Copy cacert.pem to ca.d and issue the following command on the certificate:
openssl x509 -noout -hash -in cacert.pem
The result is a hash (for example 6d2962a8), a series of alphanumeric characters based on the Distinguished Name of the certificate.
Issue the following command to create a symbolic link to the certificate that uses the hash returned by the previous command and the .0 suffix.
ln -s cacert.pem 6d2962a8.0
Adopt the following configuration example to your syslog-ng.conf by changing the IP and port parameters and directories to your local environment. In the log statement replace €œd_local€ with an actual log destination name in your configuration (for example the one that refers to/var/log/messages).
source demo_tls_source {
tcp(ip(0.0.0.0) port(6514)
tls( key_file("/usr/local/etc/syslog-ng/cert.d/serverkey.pem")
cert_file("/usr/local/etc/syslog-ng/cert.d/servercert.pem")
ca_dir("/usr/local/etc/syslog-ng/ca.d"))
); };
log { source(demo_tls_source); destination(d_local); };
Finally, restart syslog-ng OSE for the configuration changes to take effect.
Purpose:
Configuring the client side is similar to the server, the difference is in the configuration part. In the following example syslog-ng.conf is under /etc/syslog-ng, but it could be /opt/syslog-ng/etc/, /usr/local/etc/syslog-ng/ or any other directory on your system, so adopt the configuration example accordingly.
Steps:
As a first step, create two new directories under the syslog-ng OSE configuration directory:
mkdir cert.d ca.d
Copy serverkey.pem and servercert.pem to cert.d. Copy cacert.pem to ca.d and issue the following command on the certificate:
openssl x509 -noout -hash -in cacert.pem
The result is a hash (for example 6d2962a8), a series of alphanumeric characters based on the Distinguished Name of the certificate.
Issue the following command to create a symbolic link to the certificate that uses the hash returned by the previous command and the .0 suffix.
ln -s cacert.pem 6d2962a8.0
Adopt the following configuration example to your syslog-ng.conf by changing the IP and port parameters and directories to your local environment. In the log statement replace €œsrc€ with an actual log source name in your configuration.
destination demo_tls_destination {
tcp("172.16.177.147" port(6514)
tls( ca_dir("/etc/syslog-ng/ca.d")
key_file("/etc/syslog-ng/cert.d/clientkey.pem")
cert_file("/etc/syslog-ng/cert.d/clientcert.pem") )
); };
log { source(src); destination(demo_tls_destination); };
Finally, restart syslog-ng OSE for the configuration changes to take effect.
Purpose:
After configuring syslog-ng OSE, test if everything works as expected.
Steps:
On the client side, enter the following command:
logger "This is a test message"
On the server side, tail the file, where logs from the network are arriving. You should see something similar in case of the above test message:
tail -f /var/log/messages | grep test
Jun 26 19:12:06 172.16.177.129 root: This is a test message
If you cannot see it, check the log file, where the internal messages of syslog-ng are stored, both on the server and the client side. The most common causes of the problem are the following:
There is no trace of connection at all (internal logs show connection attempts), there is a network / firewall problem, or incorrectly configured destination or listening IP.
With new certificates an incorrectly configured clock can already cause problems. Check if all of your systems have the same time / time zone.
Make sure, that the Common Name is set to the correct FQDN or IP address. If you use FQDN, make sure, that your DNS server works correctly.
Do not include an e-mail address in the client and server certificates.
This tutorial has shown you how to encrypt and authenticate the connection between your clients and your logserver.
If you would like to know more about syslog-ng OSE, visit the syslog-ng project page, or check the syslog-ng documentation.