Creating an Oracle iPlanet application object

To enable Trust Protection Platform to manage PEM files installed on iPlanet servers, you must configure an iPlanet application object. This object provides the information Trust Protection Platform needs to monitor, enroll, or provision PEM files on its associated iPlanet servers.

DID YOU KNOW? When you add an installation to a certificate, you'll have the option of defining (and editing) this object during that process, which means that you don't have to log in to Policy Tree as the following procedure describes. And because the settings are the same, you can use this topic for information about each setting.

For more information, see Creating a certificate installation.

BEST PRACTICE Consider managing object settings using a policy. For more information, see Managing applications using policies.

To create and configure an Oracle iPlanet application object

From the TLS Protect menu bar, click Policy tree.
In the Policy tree, select the device object to which you want to add the new application object, and then click Add > Application, and then select iPlanet.
When the new application object page appears, then under Status, clear the Processing Disabled checkbox.

When checked, this option disables provisioning of the certificates installed on the current application. This means that Trust Protection Platform does not attempt to install, renew, process, or validate certificates on the application.
(Optional) In the Device Certificate box, click to select and associate a certificate with the new application.

NOTE If you don't have a certificate ready, you can do this later or you can do it on the certificate's Association tab.

To associate a certificate with the current application, you must have write permissions to the application object and either write or associate permissions to the certificate object.

For detailed information on associating a certificate with an application, see Associating a certificate with an application object.
Under General, do the following:
1. In the Application Name field, type a name for the new application.
2. (Optional) In the Description field, type a description for the purpose of the application.
  
  A strong description can help to provide context for other administrators who might need to manage the new application.
3. In the Contacts field, select user or group identities you want assigned to this application object (or choose the Use policy value to configure contacts using a policy).
  
  Default system notifications are sent to the contact identities. The default contact is the master administrator.
  
  TIP If the Identity Selector dialog is not populated when it first opens, enter a search query to retrieve the Identity list. The administration console does not automatically display external users and groups. You must first enter a search string so Trust Protection Platform can query the external Identity store, then return the list of requested users or groups. If you want to display all user or group entries, enter the wildcard character (*).
  
  Press Shift+click to select multiple, contiguous users and groups. Press Ctrl+click to select multiple, discontiguous users and groups.
4. In the Approvers field, select user or group Identities you want to assign to approve workflows (certificate approval or injection command) for the new application.
  
  The default approver is the master administrator. For more information on defining workflow objects, see Implementing certificate workflow management.
5. (Conditional) If your application (or certificate) object is affected by a defined workflow and you want users to use a console other than Policy Tree, click Managed By and select which administration console to use as part of the workflow.
  
  You only need to configure this if you are using workflows and expect users to perform a task using a particular administration console. The default setting is Policy Tree.
  
  For more information, see Specify folders and certificates to be managed by TLS Protect .
Under Application Information, do the following:
1. Click next to Application Credential to browse for the credential object that you want to use to authenticate with the application.
  
  DID YOU KNOW? Credential objects store the credentials Trust Protection Platform uses to authenticate with devices, applications, and CAs. The stored credential might be a user name or private key credential; some drivers—such as F5, which is not SSH-based—can only use the user name credential for authentication.
  
  NOTE The user account you select must have Read and Write access to the Temporary, Private Key, and Certificate directories.
  
  For more information, see Working with system credentials.
  
  DID YOU KNOW? The Connection Method is the protocol that Trust Protection Platform uses to connect to the server and manage the certificates installed on that server. In an application object's settings, this field is typically read-only.
2. Click the Connection Method list, click the protocol to use—HTTPS or SSH—and then in the Port field, specify the associated port number.
3. (Optional) In the Port field, type the port that Trust Protection Platform should use to communicate with the server where the application is installed.
  
  Trust Protection Platform uses the SSH protocol to communicate with the application server installed on Linux or Windows. The default SSH port assignment is port 22.

Complete the settings for the application object by referring to the following table:

Field	Policy	Description
iPlanet Settings
Certificate Database Type		Select the place where the iPlanet driver will provision keys and certificates: Berkeley (the default) . For NSS 3.35 or newer, the Berkeley DB is not supported. Use the default SQLite database instead. For more information, see https://wiki.mozilla.org/NSS_SQLite-based_DB. SQLite: Select SQLite if multiple processes share the same database and you want to be able to update the database while the server is running. NOTE SQLite is supported only if NSS tools 3.12 are installed on the target server. See Prerequisite configuration.
Certificate Database Path		Path to the Certificate (Trust) Database. For iPlanet 6.1, the default path to the Trust Database is as follows: server_root/alias/ For iPlanet 7.0, the default path to the Trust Database is as follows: server_root/https-ConfigurationName/config/ NOTE Refer to your iPlanet documentation for information on creating the Trust Database.
Certificate Database Credential		Password Trust Protection Platform uses to authenticate with the Certificate Database. NOTE Trust Protection Platform does not include the database password on the command line when performing key management operations via certutil or pk12util. Instead, it causes the utility to prompt for the password.
Certificate Database Prefix		If you're using iPlanet 6.1, you must type a prefix here in order for the keystore to function properly. This string is then prepended to key3.db or cert8.db. Type the prefix using the following syntax: https-VirtualServerName-HostName- Replace VirtualServerName and HostName with the actual values of your server. Typically, iPlanet 7.0 doesn't require a prefix.
Create		If you want Trust Protection Platform to create a new trust store automatically if one is not found, select Yes.
Replace Existing		If you selected Yes in the previous field (Create), you can then specify if you want Trust Protection Platform to replace an existing trust store with a new one, if one is found. NOTE If you want Replace Existing to always be enabled, you must enable it using a policy. This is because if you only set it here, it reverts to disabled (No) following the first successful provision.
Utilities
Certutil Path		Path to the Certutil keystore management utility. Trust Protection Platform requires access to this utility to manage certificates and private keys in the Certificate Database. NOTE The Certutil utility is installed by default with a standard iPlanet install. For more information about this utility, refer to your iPlanet documentation.
Pk12util Path		Path to the Pk12util keystore management utility. Trust Protection Platform requires access to this utility to manage certificates and private keys in the Certificate Database. NOTE The PK12util utility is installed by default with a standard iPlanet install. For more information about this utility, refer to your iPlanet documentation.
Certificate Alias		Alias that is assigned to the key/certificate in the keystore so it can be used by servers and applications accessing the Certificate Database. NOTE This value must be unique within the Certificate Database. Since the Certificate Database only permits one instance of any given Common Name, the alias should not be changed unless the CN of the certificate is altered at the same time. When provisioning a certificate renewal to an existing Certificate Database, it is important that the alias remain the same as that of the certificate being renewed.

(Optional) Under File Ownership and Permissions, select Yes on the Set Owner and Permissions after Provisioning Files drop-down—if you want to set specific permissions and ownership on files after they have been provisioned by Trust Protection Platform—and then do the following:
1. In the Owner field, type the user account name of the user who should have access to the provisioned files.
  BEST PRACTICE Who you assign as owners and approvers of your certificates is an important part of your PKI strategy. This is especially true because employees continue to pose the greatest threat to securing trust. Typically, this is because many employees fail to follow security best practices.
2. From the Owner Permissions list, select the level of permissions you want to grant to the owner (Read, or Read and Write).
3. In the Group field, type the group name to which the owner belongs.
4. From the Group Permissions list, select the level of permissions you want to grant to that group (None, Read, or Read and Write).

When you are finished, click Save.

What's next?

After you've created an application object, here are other things you can do to manage the new application:

On the application's Settings sub-tab:
- Click to push a certificate to its associated application.
  
  For more information, see Pushing a certificate and private key to an application .
- Click Reset to stop processing the application and reset the status and stage.
- Click to reattempt installation of the certificate to its associated application, .
- Click Validate Now to validate the applications associated certificate.
  
  Validation requests are placed into a queue. When your validation runs, the application and its associated certificate are scanned according to the settings configured in the application object’s Validation tab.
  
  For more information, see About certificate and application validation.
On the application object's Validation tab, you can configure validation settings for the application object.
On an object's General tab:
- Click the Log sub-tab to view any events that are triggered by the template object.
- Click the Permissions sub-tab to configure the users or groups to whom you want to grant permissions to the new object. For more information, see Permissions overview.