Uwe Gradenegger - Page 19 - Passionate about PKI

Installation of a certificate authority integrated into Active Directory using Windows PowerShell fails with error message "A value for the attribute was not in the acceptable range of values. 0x80072082 (WIN32: 8322 ERROR_DS_RANGE_CONSTRAINT)".

Assume the following scenario:

A certification authority (Enterprise CA) integrated into Active Directory is installed using Windows PowerShell (Install-AdcsCertificationAuthority).
The role configuration fails with the following error message:

Install-AdcsCertificationAuthority : Active Directory Certificate Services setup failed with the following error: A value for the attribute was not in the acceptable range of values. 0x80072082 (WIN32: 8322 ERROR_DS_RANGE_CONSTRAINT)

Overview of Active Directory events relevant for PKI

The following is an overview of the events generated on domain controllers in the Windows Event Viewer that are relevant to the public key infrastructure.

Force domain controller (or other participants) to use an online responder (OCSP)

By default, Windows systems, even if an online responder (OCSP) is configured, will be sent to a certain number of OCSP requests fall back to a (if available) brevocation list, because this is usually more efficient in such a case. However, this behavior is not always desired.

For example, if one uses smart card logins, one might want to know if Logins were executed with unauthorized issued certificates. In conjunction with the deterministic good of the online responder you can thus create an (almost) seamless Audit trail create for all smartcard logins.

Configure the "Magic Number" for the online responder

Even if an online responder is present in the network and the certification authorities have entered its address in the Authority Information Access (AIA) extension of the issued certificates, it is not always guaranteed that the online responder is actually used.

One variable here is the "Magic Number", which is present on every Windows operating system. It causes the system to fall back to blacklists (if present) if requests are made too often via OCSP for the same certificate authority.

Overview of the audit events generated by the online responder (OCSP)

The following is an overview of the audit events generated by the online responder in the Windows Event Viewer.

In contrast to operational events, which are often understood under the term "monitoring", auditing for the certification authority is the configuration of logging of security-relevant events.

Configure deterministic "good" for the online responder (OCSP).

In the default configuration, the online responder returns the status "Good" for requested certificates that do not appear on one of the configured revocation lists.

This can be problematic because the online responder has no knowledge of certificates issued by the certification authorities. If an attacker succeeds in issuing a certificate using the private key of the certification authority without their knowledge, this would not be detected by the online responder, and would also be reported in the Audit log show up as "Good".

The certification authority service does not start and throws the error message "The device that is required by this cryptographic provider is not ready for use. 0x80090030 (-2146893776 NTE_DEVICE_NOT_READY)"

Assume the following scenario:

A certification authority is implemented in the network.
The certification authority service does not start.
When trying to start the Certification Authority service, you get the following error message:

The device that is required by this cryptographic provider is not ready for use. 0x80090030 (-2146893776 NTE_DEVICE_NOT_READY)

Details of the event with ID 5127 of the source Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing

Event Source:	Microsoft Windows Security Auditing
Event ID:	5127 (0x1407)
Event log:	Security
Event type:	Information
Event text (English):	The OCSP Revocation Provider successfully updated the revocation information. CA Configuration ID: %1 Base CRL Number: %2 Base CRL This Update: %3 Base CRL Hash: %4 Delta CRL Number: %5 Delta CRL Indicator: %6 Delta CRL This Update: %7 Delta CRL Hash: %8
Event text (German):	The OCSP response service has successfully updated the revocation information. Certification authority configuration ID: %1 Base revocation list number: %2 Base revocation list, this update: %3 Base revocation list hash: %4 Delta revocation list number: %5 Delta revocation list display: %6 Delta revocation list, this update: %7 Delta revocation list hash: %8

Details of the event with ID 5126 of the source Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing

Event Source:	Microsoft Windows Security Auditing
Event ID:	5126 (0x1406)
Event log:	Security
Event type:	Information
Event text (English):	Signing Certificate was automatically updated by the OCSP Responder Service. CA Configuration ID: %1 New Signing Certificate Hash: %2
Event text (German):	The signing certificate was automatically updated by the OCSP response service. Certification authority configuration ID: %1 New signature certificate hash: %2

Details of the event with ID 5125 of the source Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing

Event Source:	Microsoft Windows Security Auditing
Event ID:	5125 (0x1405)
Event log:	Security
Event type:	Information
Event text (English):	A request was submitted to OCSP Responder Service.
Event text (German):	A request is transmitted to the OCSP response service.

Details of the event with ID 5124 of the source Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing

Event Source:	Microsoft Windows Security Auditing
Event ID:	5124 (0x1404)
Event log:	Security
Event type:	Information
Event text (English):	A security setting was updated on OCSP Responder Service. New Value: %1
Event text (German):	A security setting has been updated for the OCSP response service. New value: %1

Details of the event with ID 5123 of the source Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing

Event Source:	Microsoft Windows Security Auditing
Event ID:	5123 (0x1403)
Event log:	Security
Event type:	Information
Event text (English):	A configuration entry changed in the OCSP Responder Service. Property Name: %1 New Value: %2
Event text (German):	A configuration entry has been changed in the OCSP response service. Property name: %1 New value: %2

Details of the event with ID 5122 of the source Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing

Event Source:	Microsoft Windows Security Auditing
Event ID:	5122 (0x1402)
Event log:	Security
Event type:	Information
Event text (English):	A Configuration entry changed in the OCSP Responder Service. CA Configuration ID: %1 New Value: %2
Event text (German):	A configuration entry was changed in the OCSP response service. Certification authority configuration ID: %1 New value: %2

Details of the event with ID 5121 of the source Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing

Event Source:	Microsoft Windows Security Auditing
Event ID:	5121 (0x1401)
Event log:	Security
Event type:	Information
Event text (English):	OCSP Responder Service Stopped.
Event text (German):	The OCSP response service has been terminated.

Details of the event with ID 5120 of the source Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing

Event Source:	Microsoft Windows Security Auditing
Event ID:	5120 (0x1400)
Event log:	Security
Event type:	Information
Event text (English):	OCSP Responder Service Started.
Event text (German):	The OCSP response service has been started.