Enabling certificate-based authentication
The recommended procedure for enabling certificate-based authentication is described below:
1. Add the VCS's trusted CA and server certificate files (on the Trusted CA certificate and Server
certificate pages, respectively).
2. Configure certificate revocation lists (on the CRL management page).
3. Use the Client certificate testing page to verify that the client certificate you intend to use is valid.
4. Set Client certificate-based security to Certificate validation (on the System administration page).
5. Restart the VCS.
6. Use the Client certificate testing page again to set up the required regex and format patterns to extract
the username credentials from the certificate.
7. Only when you are sure that the correct username is being extracted from the certificate, set Client
certificate-based security to Certificate-based authentication.
Authentication versus authorization
When the VCS is operating in certificate-based authentication mode, user authentication is managed by a
process external to the VCS.
When a user attempts to log in to the VCS, the VCS will request a certificate from the client browser. The
browser may then interact with a card reader to obtain the certificate from the smart card (or alternatively the
certificate may already be loaded into the browser). To release the certificate from the card/browser, the user
will typically be requested to authenticate themselves by entering a PIN. If the client certificate received by
the VCS is valid (signed by a trusted certificate authority, in date and not revoked by a CRL) then the user is
deemed to be authenticated.
To determine the user's authorization level (read-write, read-only and so on) the VCS must extract the user's
authorization username from the certificate and present it to the relevant local or remote authorization
mechanism.
The following diagram shows an example authorization and authentication process. It shows how a
certificate is obtained from a card reader and then validated by the VCS. It then shows how the VCS obtains
the user's authorization level from an Active Directory service.
Cisco VCS Administrator Guide (X8.1.1) Page 291 of 507
Maintenance
About security certificates
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