Bug 1401606

Summary:	certutil requires password when adding certificate to a database in FIPS mode
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7	Reporter:	Standa Laznicka <slaznick>
Component:	nss	Assignee:	Bob Relyea <rrelyea>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	BaseOS QE Security Team <qe-baseos-security>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	7.3	CC:	dueno, hkario, kengert, lucas.yamanishi, omoris, rrelyea
Target Milestone:	rc
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2017-02-27 16:10:46 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:
Bug Blocks:	839624, 1125174, 1427443

Description Standa Laznicka 2016-12-05 16:31:08 UTC

Description of problem:
A certificate bears public information and its addition to an nss database should not be guarded by a password, not even in FIPS mode.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
nss-tools-3.21.3-2

How reproducible:
Create a clean NSS database. Get a .der certificate. Try to run certutil to store the certificate in the database as root.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. # mkdir nssdb
2. # certutil -N -d nssdb -f nssdbpwd 
3. # cat cert.der | certutil -A -d nssdb -n CA Certificate 1 -t C,,

Actual results:
Receiving password/pin-prompt:
'Enter Password or Pin for "NSS FIPS 140-2 Certificate DB":'


Expected results:
The certificate gets stored in the database.

Comment 2 Kai Engert (:kaie) (inactive account) 2017-02-24 14:02:07 UTC

Stanislav,

I believe it's intended that any modification to the NSS database in FIPS mode requires the password.

I'm setting needinfo.

Bob, if you agree with me, please close this bug as CLOSED/NOTABUG.

Comment 3 Alicja Kario 2017-02-24 17:45:16 UTC

certificate may include only public information, but adding it to database changes what CAs the clients will trust, so modification of the database is not without effect

if modification of the database is required not to require password, it's possible to do that by creating a database with empty password:

1. # mkdir nssdb
2. # certutil -N -d nssdb --empty-password
3. # cat cert.der | certutil -A -d nssdb -n CA Certificate 1 -t C,,

Comment 4 Standa Laznicka 2017-02-27 07:00:04 UTC

Hello Kai, Hubert,

Yes, I believe you may close the ticket now. If you could add a pointer to a documentation to what's different for certutil in FIPS mode, I'd appreciate that, too.

Cheers.

Comment 5 Kai Engert (:kaie) (inactive account) 2017-02-27 16:10:46 UTC

I don't think we have specific documentation for certutil.

You might be interested in generic requirements for FIPS mode.

I'm keeping the needinfo for Bob, in case he knows of a document describing the differences of NSS expectations in FIPS mode.

Comment 6 Bob Relyea 2017-03-06 21:27:53 UTC

Unforutnately there is no documentation for this.