---
title: "Self-Hosted Certificate Manager"  
date: 2024-08-01T20:00:00+02:00  
weight: 2
cascade:  
  type: docs
---

## Sources

- [Official documentation](https://smallstep.com/docs/tutorials/)
- [Step-CA as a systemd service](https://angrysysadmins.tech/index.php/2022/09/grassyloki/step-ca-run-as-a-systemd-service/)
- [Certificate management with OpenSSL](https://www.golinuxcloud.com/tutorial-pki-certificates-authority-ocsp/)

## About Step-CA

Step-CA is a toolset developed by Smallstep, a company specializing in secure identity management and certificate automation.
Its mission is to simplify setting up and managing your own certificate authorities (CAs).

### Key features

1. Certificate authority management: easily configure and manage your own CAs. Create root and intermediate CAs, issue certificates, and handle revocations.

2. Secure key management: follows best practices for securely storing and managing keys, so your cryptographic keys stay protected from unauthorized access.

3. Automation and scalability: works for small to large-scale deployments. APIs and integrations automate certificate issuance, renewal, and revocation across the lifecycle.

4. Modern cryptography: Step-CA supports industry-standard X.509 certificates using modern cryptographic algorithms and protocols for encryption and digital signatures.

5. Infrastructure integration: integrates with your existing tools and systems, and supports various authentication methods such as username/password, MFA, and external identity providers.

6. Auditability and compliance: comprehensive logging and auditing let you track certificate activity and meet compliance requirements.

7. Developer-friendly APIs: APIs and SDKs designed for developers make it easy to integrate certificate management into your applications and custom workflows.

Step-CA by Smallstep is built to make certificate authority management straightforward: you manage your certificates' lifecycle while keeping your infrastructure protected.

## Installation

### Binary installation

#### 1. Step CLI

```bash
wget https://dl.step.sm/gh-release/cli/docs-cli-install/v0.24.3/step-cli_0.24.3_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i step-cli_0.24.3_amd64.deb
```

#### 2. Step-CA

```bash
wget https://dl.step.sm/gh-release/certificates/docs-ca-install/v0.24.1/step-ca_0.24.1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i step-ca_0.24.1_amd64.deb
```

#### 3. Creating a dedicated user

```bash
adduser adminCA
```

#### Configuration

```bash
$ step ca init --password-file=password.txt
✔ Deployment type: Standalone
What would you like to name your new PKI?
✔ (e.g. Smallstep) : Lab
✔ (e.g. ca.example.com[,10.1.2.3,etc.]) : ca.lab.loc, localhost, 192.168.1.101
What IP and port will your new CA bind to? (:443 will bind to 0.0.0.0:443). 1.101
✔ (e.g. :443 or 127.0.0.1:443) : :443
What would you like to name the CA's first provisioner?
✔ (e.g. you@smallstep.com) : contact@lab.loc
Choose a password for your CA keys and the first provisioner.
✔ [leave empty and we will generate one] : 

Generating root certificate... done!
Generating intermediate certificate... done!

✔ Root certificate: /home/adminCA/.step/certs/root_ca.crt  
✔ Root private key: /home/adminCA/.step/secrets/root_ca_key  
✔ Root fingerprint: 7d754397c6897aa87d21e33c64daad7be087dc6fe18bf04627848ae1c8e26a4f  
✔ Intermediate certificate: /home/adminCA/.step/certs/intermediate_ca.crt  
✔ Intermediate private key: /home/adminCA/.step/secrets/intermediate_ca_key  
✔ Database folder: /home/adminCA/.step/db  
✔ Default configuration: /home/adminCA/.step/config/defaults.json  
✔ Certificate Authority configuration: /home/adminCA/.step/config/ca.json  

Your PKI is ready to go. To generate certificates for individual services, see `step help ca`.

**Feedback:**
The step utility is not instrumented for usage statistics. It does not contact a central server. Your feedback is, however, extremely valuable! Please consider writing to feedback@smallstep.com, joining GitHub Discussions, or joining us on Discord at [https://u.step.sm/discord](https://u.step.sm/discord).
```

Start Step-CA:

```bash
step-ca .step/config/ca.json
```

#### Enable ACME

```bash
$ step ca provisioner add acme --type ACME
✔ CA Configuration: /home/adminCA/.step/config/ca.json

Success! Your `step-ca` configuration has been updated. To pick up the new configuration, send a SIGHUP (kill -1 <pid>) or restart the step-ca process.
```

#### Running Step-CA as a systemd service

Create a file:

```bash
vim /etc/systemd/system/step-ca.service
```

Paste in the following:

```config
[Unit]
Description=step-ca
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
User=adminCA
Group=adminCA
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c '/bin/step-ca /home/adminCA/.step/config/ca.json --password-file=/home/step/.step/pwd >> /var/log/step-ca/output.log 2>&1'
Type=simple
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```

Create the log directory:

```bash
mkdir -p /var/log/step-ca
chown -R adminCA:adminCA /var/log/step-ca
```

Reload the systemd daemon:

```bash
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start step-ca.service
```

### Docker installation

```bash
docker run -it -v step:/home/step \
    -p 9000:9000 \
    -e "DOCKER_STEPCA_INIT_NAME=Lab" \
    -e "DOCKER_STEPCA_INIT_DNS_NAMES=caserver.lab.loc,localhost,192.168.1.101" \
    -e "DOCKER_STEPCA_INIT_REMOTE_MANAGEMENT=true" \
    -e "DOCKER_STEPCA_INIT_ACME=true" \
    smallstep/step-ca
```

## Accessing the CA from another client

> [!NOTE] Adjust the port based on your installation:
>
> - **Binary:** port **443**
> - **Docker:** port **9000**

Install the Step CLI:

```bash
wget https://dl.step.sm/gh-release/cli/docs-cli-install/v0.24.3/step-cli_0.24.3_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i step-cli_0.24.3_amd64.deb
```

Initialize your CA:

```bash
step ca bootstrap --ca-url https://caserver.lab.loc:$PORT/ --fingerprint 685059c30eb305db5272a7a199a2b5823624d55c732121ac65c06b0915d3c887
```

> [!TIP] To get the **fingerprint**, simply run:
>
> ```bash
> step certificate fingerprint $(step path)/certs/root_ca.crt
> ```
>
> For Docker, check the container logs.

Example output:

```bash
admin@User:~$ step ca bootstrap --ca-url https://caserver.lab.loc:$PORT --fingerprint 685059c30eb305db5272a7a199a2b5823624d55c732121ac65c06b0915d3c887
The root certificate has been saved in /home/admin/.step/certs/root_ca.crt.
The authority configuration has been saved in /home/admin/.step/config/defaults.json.
```

Install the certificate:

```bash
step certificate install $(step path)/certs/root_ca.crt
```

---

> [!TIP] **Installation on Debian:**  
>
> - Copy the individual CRT files (PEM format) into `/usr/local/share/ca-certificates/`  
> - The files must be owned by `root:root` with `644` permissions  
> - Make sure the `ca-certificates` package is installed (if not, install it)  
> - Then, run as root:
>
> ```bash
> # /usr/sbin/update-ca-certificates
> ```
>
> All certificates will be consolidated into: `/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt`

---

### Obtaining a certificate

```bash
admin@User:~$ step ca certificate nas.lab.loc srv.crt srv.key
✔ Provisioner: contact@lab.loc (JWK) [kid: chyGkrZqp-BGSHUZ8v3jsPipegt2JLcC7y6RPq4OOkU]
Please enter the password to decrypt the provisioner key:
✔ CA: https://caserver.lab.loc:443
✔ Certificate: srv.crt
✔ Private Key: srv.key
```

---

> [!TIP] To perform a health check:
>
> ```bash
> curl https://caserver.lab.loc:443/health -k
> ```

---

You may need to customize the `ca.json` file to increase the minimum certificate validity duration. Here's the directory structure:

```bash
.
|-- certs
|   |-- intermediate_ca.crt
|   `-- root_ca.crt
|-- config
|   |-- ca.json
|   `-- defaults.json
|-- db
|   |-- 000000.vlog
|   |-- 000020.sst
|   |-- KEYREGISTRY
|   |-- LOCK
|   `-- MANIFEST
|-- secrets
|   |-- intermediate_ca_key
|   |-- password
|   `-- root_ca_key
`-- templates
```

Example `ca.json` file:

```json
{
    "root": "/home/step/certs/root_ca.crt",
    "federatedRoots": null,
    "crt": "/home/step/certs/intermediate_ca.crt",
    "key": "/home/step/secrets/intermediate_ca_key",
    "address": ":9000",
    "insecureAddress": "",
    "dnsNames": [
        "caserver.lab.loc",
        "caserver",
        "localhost",
        "192.168.1.200"
    ],
    "logger": {
        "format": "text"
    },
    "db": {
        "type": "badgerv2",
        "dataSource": "/home/step/db",
        "badgerFileLoadingMode": ""
    },
    "authority": {
        "enableAdmin": true,
        "claims": {
            "maxTLSCertDuration": "4380h"
        }
    },
    "tls": {
        "cipherSuites": [
            "TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256",
            "TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256"
        ],
        "minVersion": 1.2,
        "maxVersion": 1.3,
        "renegotiation": false
    }
}
