Default variable details

Some of debops.pki default variables have more extensive configuration than simple strings or lists, here you can find documentation and examples for them.

pki_private_groups_present
pki_realms
pki_authorities
pki_certbot_configuration

pki_private_groups_present 

This list can be used to create system groups that otherwise could be not present when the PKI realm is managed. For example another role creates custom user/group that maintains its own service certificates, but in order to do that, debops.pki is used to manage the PKI realm but at the moment that the debops.pki role is run by Ansible, custom group does not exist, so the Ansible run stops. Therefore, you can create system groups beforehand using this list.

You can define the system groups as simple items, or dictionary values with parameters:

name: The name of the group to create.
system: Boolean, by default True. Specify if a given group is a system group.
when: The value of this variable is checked as a boolean (True/False) to determine if a given system group should be created or not. You can use this as a condition to, for example, create groups only on specific hosts.

Examples

Ensure two system groups exist, one with a condition:

pki_private_groups_present:

  - 'group1'

  - name: 'group2'
    when: '{{ inventory_hostname in specific_inventory_group }}'

pki_realms 

The set of pki_realms lists can be used to define the configuration of PKI realms located on remote hosts. Each realm keeps a set of private keys and certificates which are signed by the various Certificate Authorities.

Each entry is a dictionary variable with specific parameters. Most of the parameters are optional, and if they are not specified, the pki-realm script that manages the PKI realms should pick the correct options by itself.

List of parameters related to the entire PKI realm:

name

Required. This is the name of the PKI realm, used as the name of the directory which contains the realm subdirectories, by default stored in the /etc/pki/realms/ directory. The name parameter is interpreted by the role in various ways:

the single string name, like "domain", "xxxxaaaayyyy" or similar strings. These PKI realm names can be thought of as "handles" and they don't have any impact on the domains stored in the X.509 certificates. The role will by default use the host's FQDN and DNS domain name to generate such realms, but it can be overridden. Users can create multiple such PKI realms for various purposes.

the DNS-based name, which contains dots, like "example.com", "host.example.com" and the like. These PKI realms base their X.509 certificates after the realm name by default. This is also the reason the default PKI realm is named "domain" and not "{{ ansible_domain }}" - users can create a new PKI realm for their default DNS domain on hosts that are reachable publicly and they will automatically get the Let's Encrypt certificates when possible, or can easily use external certificates grabbed from some other CA.

Some DebOps roles like debops.nginx can check the list of available PKI realms via the local facts and use some other PKI realm rather than the default one automatically. For example, if an user creates an "example.com" PKI realm and then uses the "example.com" DNS domain, standalone or with a subdomain like "sub.example.com", the debops.nginx role will check if a PKI realm named after a given FQDN or DNS domain exists and will use it instead of the "domain" PKI realm used by default. It can be thought of as a shortcut to easily manage X.509 certificates for multiple websites, each one with its own FQDN domain name.

the mail-based name, like "user@example.org" - any PKI realm name which contains the '@' character qualifies as one. These PKI realms were meant to keep the client certificates used to authenticate to services, but this idea was not developed further, so far.

If the subject parameter is not specified, name parameter is checked to see if it might be a DNS domain (at least 1 dot present in the value). If yes, it will be used as a default domain for a given PKI realm.

Example:

pki_realms:

  # Default PKI realm
  - name: 'domain'

  # Custom PKI realm
  - name: 'example.org'

authority

Specify name of the internal Certificate Authority to send the internal certificate requests to instead of the default one configured in pki_default_authority variable. This should be the "normal" name of the authority, not its subdomain name.

acme

Optional, boolean. Enable or disable support for ACME Certificate Authority. Can be used to invert the global pki_acme setting per PKI realm if needed, but support for ACME needs to be present on the remote host for it to work (see pki_acme_install variable).

acme_ca

Optional, name of the ACME API endpoint used by the ACME client. Defaults to pki_acme_ca.

acme_ca_api

Optional, the URL of the ACME API endpoint. Defaults to the value in pki_acme_ca_api_map (whose key defaults to item.acme_ca).

acme_challenge_dir

Optional, directory where the ACME client should store responses to ACME CA challenges. Defaults to pki_acme_challenge_dir.

acme_contacts

Optional, list of (mailto:) URLs that the ACME server can use to contact you for issues related to your account. For example, the server may wish to notify you about server-initiated revocation or certificate expiration. If not specified, the list defined in pki_acme_contacts will be used.

internal

Optional, boolean. Enable or disable support for internal CA certificates in a given realm. If you disable internal CA support, an alternative, self-signed certificate will be created and enabled automatically.

authority_preference

Optional. List of directory names (external, acme, internal, selfsigned) which determines the order in which the PKI realm looks for valid certificates. The first found valid certificate is enabled. If not specified, the order configured in pki_authority_preference will be used.

environment

Optional. YAML dictionary which defines environment variables for a given PKI realm. Dictionary keys are used as variable names and dictionary values define the variable values.

library

Optional. Specify name of the crypto library used to generate private key and internal certificate requests in a given PKI realm. Either gnutls (default) or openssl.

acme_library

Optional. Specify name of the crypto library used to generate ACME certificate requests in a given PKI realm. Either openssl (default) or gnutls.

private_dir_group

Optional. System group which will be set as the group of the private/ directory of a given PKI realm. By default, ssl-cert. It needs to exist, and can be created using pki_private_groups_present list.

private_file_group

Optional. System group which will be set as the group of the private keys inside of the private/ directory. It needs to exist, and can be created using pki_private_groups_present list.

private_dir_acl_groups

Optional. List of groups which should be allowed execute (X) permission to the private/ realm directory. The access will be granted using filesystem ACL table. If not specified, the list defined in pki_private_dir_acl_groups will be applied.

private_file_acl_groups

Optional. List of groups which should be allowed read (r) permission to the files in the private/ realm directory. The access will be granted using filesystem ACL table. If not specified, the list defined in pki_private_file_acl_groups will be applied.

realm_key_size

Optional. The size of the private key that is to be generated. Defaults to pki_realm_key_size.

dhparam

Optional, boolean. Enable or disable support for adding the Diffie-Hellman parameters at the end of the certificate chain.

dhparam_file

Optional. Path to the Diffie-Hellman parameters to include in the certificate chain. If not specified, DHE parameters managed by the debops.dhparam role will be used automatically, if they're available.

selfsigned_sign_days

Optional. Number of days a selfsigned certificate will be valid for. The default is 365 days.

enabled, when

Optional, boolean. Enable or disable management of a given realm. If disabled, Ansible will not execute commands related to that realm. The when parameter is meant for automated processing, and enabled should be used as an user option, exposed through the inventory.

These parameters are related to internal certificates and ACME certificates, respectively:

default_domain

Optional. Change the default domain used by a given PKI realm. If not specified, the default domain is based on the name parameter if it has at least 1 dot, or it will be taken from pki_default_domain variable which is populated by the ansible_domain variable.

default_subdomains, acme_default_subdomains

Optional. List of subdomains added to each domain configured in a given PKI realm. A special value _wildcard_ can be used to indicate that a wildcard domain should be present in the certificate.

If not specified, pki_default_subdomains (for internal CA) and pki_acme_default_subdomains (for ACME CA) will be used. The PKI parameters can be set to empty to override the default variables.

subject, acme_subject

Optional. The Distinguished Name of the certificate, specified as a list of DN elements. If not specified, a CommonName based on the default domain of the given PKI realm will be used. Empty string elements of the list will be ignored.

Example:

pki_realms:

  - name: 'domain'
    subject: [ 'o=Organization Name', 'ou=IT', 'cn=example.org' ]

domains, acme_domains

Optional. List of domains which should be included in a given certificate. Each domain will include a set of subdomains specified by the other parameters. This can be used to easily create certificates that use multiple domains with similar set of subdomains.

subdomains, acme_subdomains

Optional. List of subdomains which will be added to each domain specified by the above parameters. The special value _wildcard_ indicates that a wildcard domain should be included in the certificate.

subject_alt_names, acme_alt_names

Optional. Specify a custom set of SubjectAltNames included in a certificate, as a list. Each element of a list needs to indicate its type in a special format. Currently supported types:

a DNS record: [ 'dns:example.org', 'DNS:example.com' ]
an IP address: [ 'ip:192.0.2.1', 'IP:2001:db8::dead:beef' ]
an URI path: [ 'uri:http://example.org/', 'URI:https://example.com/' ]
an email address: [ 'email:root@example.org', 'EMAIL:staff@example.com' ]

If an element of the list does not specify its type, it will not be included in the certificate request. Different element types can be used in the same list.

Example:

pki_realms:

  - name: 'domain'
    subject_alt_names:
      - 'ip:{{ ansible_default_ipv4.address }}'
      - 'uri:https://{{ ansible_domain }}/'
      - 'dns:*.{{ ansible_domain }}'
      - 'dns:{{ ansible_domain }}'

pki_authorities 

The set of pki_authorities lists can be used to define internal Certificate Authorities managed on an Ansible Controller.

List of supported parameters:

name

Required, a short name of the CA (used for role internals).

subdomain

Required, the subdomain to be prepended to item.domain.

subject

Required, list of the X.509 subject elements of the CA certificate.

alt_authority

Optional, item.name of a cross-signed CA. Only use this if the alternative CA certificate can also be used to form a trust chain. The alternative CA certificates will be stored in the PKI realm directory with the alt_*.pem filename.

ca_sign_days

Optional, the number of days that the intermediate CA certificate will be valid. If left empty, this value will be calculated by multiplying pki_default_sign_base with pki_default_ca_sign_multiplier.

cert_sign_days

Optional, the number of days that the client/server certificates will be valid. If left empty, this value will be calculated by multiplying pki_default_sign_base with pki_default_cert_sign_multiplier.

crl

Optional, the CRL URL to include in certificates which can be used for certificate status checking. The default is True which will result in http://\$name.\$domain_suffix/crl/. It can be set to False to not include a CRL URL in certificates. Any other value (not matching ^(?:[Tt]rue|[Ff]alse)$) will be included as is as CRL URL.

domain

Optional, the DNS domain used for the CA. Defaults to pki_ca_domain.

issuer_name

Optional, name of the higher-authority CA (item.name) that signs this CA. Defaults to an empty string, meaning that this CA is self-signed (and can thus become the root CA).

key_size

Optional, size of the CA private key in bits. Defaults to 4096.

ocsp

Optional, the OCSP URL to include in certificates which can be used for certificate status checking. The default is True which will result in http://\$name.\$domain_suffix/ocsp/. It can be set to False to not include a OCSP URL in certificates. Any other value (not matching ^(?:[Tt]rue|[Ff]alse)$) will be included as is as OCSP URL.

name_constraints

Optional, the X.509 Name Constraints certificate extension to include in certificates which will be used during certificate verification to ensure that the CA is authorized to issue a certificate for the name in question. The default is True which will result in critical, permitted;DNS:${config_domain} (the 'critical, ' part is omitted when item.name_constraints_critical is set to False). It can be set to False to not include X.509 Name Constraints in certificates. Any other value (not matching ^(?:[Tt]rue|[Ff]alse)$) will be included as is as X.509 Name Constraint.

name_constraints_critical

Optional, boolean for specifying whether to mark the default Name Constraints extension as critical or not. The default is True. The CA/Browser forum recommends this to be enabled (REQUIRING X.509 libraries to support it or to return an error), but mentions that the extension may be disabled for compatibility reasons (ref: Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-Trusted Certificates (v1.6.4)).

root_sign_days

Optional, the number of days that the root CA certificate will be valid. If left empty, this value will be calculated by multiplying pki_default_sign_base with pki_default_root_sign_multiplier.

system_ca

Optional, boolean that specifies whether the root CA certificate will be added to the system CA certificates. This happens by creating a symlink in the ansible/secret/pki/ca-certificates directory tree. Defaults to True.

type

Optional, the CA type. Either root, service, server or an empty string. Sets various CA type specific options when running the pki-authority script. These options are not documented, you will have to read the pki-authority script to find out what exactly they do.

Example:

pki_authorities:

  - name: 'root'
    subdomain: 'root-ca'
    subject: [ 'c={{ pki_ca_country }}', 'o={{ pki_ca_organization }}',
               'cn={{ pki_ca_organization }} Internal Root CA' ]
    key_size: '4096'
    crl: False
    ocsp: False
    name_constraints: '{{ "permitted;DNS:example.net,"
                          + "permitted;DNS:.example.net,"
                          + "permitted;DNS:example.com,"
                          + "permitted;DNS:.example.com" }}'

pki_certbot_configuration 

The pki_certbot_*_configuration variables can be used to define the contents of the /etc/letsencrypt/cli.ini configuration file, which contains global certbot configuration.

Examples

Recreate the official example configuration file using DebOps:

pki_certbot_configuration:

  - name: 'key-type'
    comment: 'Use ECC for the private key'
    value: 'ecdsa'

  - 'elliptic-curve': 'secp384r1'

  - name: 'rsa-key-size'
    comment: 'Use a 4096 bit RSA key instead of 2048'
    value: 4096

  - name: 'email'
    comment: 'Uncomment and update to register with the specified e-mail address'
    value: 'foo@example.com'
    state: 'comment'

  - name: 'authenticator-standalone'
    option: 'authenticator'
    comment: 'Uncomment to use the standalone authenticator on port 443'
    value: 'standalone'
    state: 'comment'

  - name: 'authenticator-webroot'
    option: 'authenticator'
    comment: |
      Uncomment to use the webroot authenticator. Replace webroot-path with the
      path to the public_html / webroot folder being served by your web server.
    value: 'webroot'
    state: 'comment'

  - name: 'webroot-path'
    value: '/usr/share/nginx/html'
    state: 'comment'

  - name: 'agree-tos'
    comment: 'Uncomment to automatically agree to the terms of service of the ACME server'
    value: True
    state: 'comment'

  - name: 'server'
    comment: 'An example of using an alternate ACME server that uses EAB credentials'
    value: 'https://acme.sectigo.com/v2/InCommonRSAOV'
    state: 'comment'

  - name: 'eab-kid'
    value: 'somestringofstuffwithoutquotes'
    state: 'comment'

  - name: 'eab-hmac-key'
    value: 'yaddayaddahexhexnotquoted'
    state: 'comment'

Define manual hook scripts used for certificate renewal and cleanup:

# Use "certbot" in manual mode, with custom authentication and cleanup
# scripts
pki_acme_type: 'manual'

pki_certbot_configuration:

  - 'authenticator': 'manual'
  - 'manual-auth-hook': '/etc/letsencrypt/scripts/authenticator.php'
  - 'manual-cleanup-hook': '/etc/letsencrypt/scripts/cleanup.php'
  - 'manual-public-ip-logging-ok': True

Syntax

The contents of the configuration file are defined using the Universal Configuration system. The variables are list of YAML dictionaries. You can use a dictionary key to define a parameter name, and a dictionary value as the value.

If you use name as the key, the configuration options can be defined in a more extended format using specific parameters:

name: Required. Name of the configuration option. Entries with the same name are merged together and can affect each other; this can be used to activate configuration options conditionally.
option: Optional. If you need to specify the same configuration option multiple times, you need to use unique name parameters. In that case you can add the option parameter to define the actual option name which will be used in the configuration file.
value: The value of a configuration option, added in the configuration file as-is.
state: Optional. If not specified or present, a given configuration option will be included in the generated configuration file. If absent, a given option will not be included in the configuration file. If comment, the option will be included but commented out. if ignore, a given entry will not be processed by the role during execution.
comment: Optional. String or YAML text block with a comment about a given configuration option added in the generated file.

Default variable details

pki_private_groups_present

Examples

pki_realms

pki_authorities

pki_certbot_configuration

Examples

Syntax

pki_private_groups_present 

pki_realms 

pki_authorities 

pki_certbot_configuration 