IKE Authentication (Certificate-Based Authentication)

Multilevel Hierarchy for Certificate Authentication

Certificate-based authentication is an authentication method supported on SRX Series Firewalls during IKE negotiation. In large networks, multiple certificate authorities (CAs) can issue end entity (EE) certificates to their respective end devices. It is common to have separate CAs for individual locations, departments, or organizations.

When a single-level hierarchy for certificate-based authentication is employed, all EE certificates in the network must be signed by the same CA. All firewall devices must have the same CA certificate enrolled for peer certificate validation. The certificate payload sent during IKE negotiation only contains EE certificates.

Alternatively, the certificate payload sent during IKE negotiation can contain a chain of EE and CA certificates. A certificate chain is the list of certificates required to validate a peer’s EE certificate. The certificate chain includes the EE certificate and any CA certificates that are not present in the local peer.

The network administrator needs to ensure that all peers participating in an IKE negotiation have at least one common trusted CA in their respective certificate chains. The common trusted CA does not have to be the root CA. The number of certificates in the chain, including certificates for EEs and the topmost CA in the chain, cannot exceed 10.

Starting with Junos OS Release 18.1R1, validation of a configured IKE peer can be done with a specified CA server or group of CA servers. With certificate chains, the root CA must match the trusted CA group or CA server configured in the IKE policy

In the example CA hierarchy shown in Figure 1, Root-CA is the common trusted CA for all devices in the network. Root-CA issues CA certificates to the engineering and sales CAs, which are identified as Eng-CA and Sales-CA, respectively. Eng-CA issues CA certificates to the development and quality assurance CAs, which are identified as Dev-CA and Qa-CA, respectively. Host-A receives its EE certificate from Dev-CA while Host-B receives its EE certificate from Sales-CA.

Figure 1: Multilevel Hierarchy for Certificate-Based Authentication

Each end device needs to be loaded with the CA certificates in its hierarchy. Host-A must have Root-CA, Eng-CA, and Dev-CA certificates; Sales-CA and Qa-CA certificates are not necessary. Host-B must have Root-CA and Sales-CA certificates. Certificates can be loaded manually in a device or enrolled using the Simple Certificate Enrollment Process (SCEP).

Each end device must be configured with a CA profile for each CA in the certificate chain. The following output shows the CA profiles configured on Host-A:

admin@host-A# show security
pki {
    ca-profile Root-CA {
        ca-identity Root-CA;
        enrollment {
            url “www.example.net/scep/Root/”;
        }
    }
    ca-profile Eng-CA {
        ca-identity Eng-CA;
        enrollment {
            url “www.example.net/scep/Eng/”;
        }
    }
    ca-profile Dev-CA {                  
        ca-identity Dev-CA;
        enrollment {
            url “www.example.net/scep/Dev/”;
        }
    }
}

The following output shows the CA profiles configured on Host-B:

admin@host-B# show security
pki {
    ca-profile Root-CA {
        ca-identity Root-CA;
        enrollment {
            url “www.example.net/scep/Root/”;
        }
    }
    ca-profile Sales-CA {
        ca-identity Sales-CA;
        enrollment {
            url “www.example.net/scep/Sales/”;
        }
    }
}