Questions about Creating the Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

[morit]

Hello,
I have some questions about Creating the Certificate Signing Request (CSR) for Veeam Backup server.

Q1) Already checked below article, but this was released 7 years ago and not sure if the steps are still feasible.
Is there any updated procedure?
https://www.veeam.com/blog/generate-and ... html?amp=1

Q2) “In order to generate the CSR, on the Windows Server, you need first to create with a text editor a .inf file.”
Is there any tool to create a .inf file? Or is this supposed to be a manual task (using text editor)?
Any recommended tool to generate this file?

Q3) https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110
does Veeam support only a PFX file format?

[Natalia Lupacheva]

Hi Mori,

1) The described certificate generation procedure is quite standard, did you face any issues with it?
Certificate installation is also described in helpcenter .

2) I would say the easiest way is just to create it from the text file.
But of course there are other ways to create such file. You can write a script, for example. But I believe it would take a little bit more time, so if you need to do it just once - I would use the easy way.

3) It should be pfx, but just in case - if you have a certificate in .crt format, you can just convert it to pfx.

Thanks!

[morit]

Thank you for the inputs. Noted.

[morit]

Hi,

The customer is asking one more question regarding CSR & SSL certificates.
They are checking if CSR & SSL certificates will be required in their setup or not.
I think it’s totally depending on the customer requirement & environment. But, in general, is it required to use Certificate Signing Request & Install the Signed Certificate on the Veeam server (i.e. communicate with vCenter server)?

If they are using (or planning to use) Veeam software solutions like Enterprise Manager or Cloud Connect, SSL certificates should be deployed to protect the web service access.
But, they are not using Enterprise Manager or Cloud Connect, and they are using VBR for pure VMware VM backup & restore purpose.

Their Backup environment consists of following components;
-1 x physical Windows server running the Veeam Backup & Replication server (VBR), backup proxy, and backup repository components
-2 x ESXi hosts and 1 x vCenter VM
-Around 10-15 VMs (Windows, Linux)
-No Veeam Agent backup
-No Enterprise Manager or Cloud Connect

[Natalia Lupacheva]

Hi Mori,

Not sure if I understood you correctly. Are you trying to define all points where the Certificate is required?
As for adding vSphere host to your infrastructure - yes, you will need to use certificate, please check this article.

Thanks!

[morit]

Thank you for the inputs.
Understand that the Certificate can be used when adding vSphere host to the backup infrastructure.
The customer is also checking if there is any web services running on the VBR server/Veeam components (to use a CA) ?

[veremin]

Do you have Enterprise Manager installed? This service also uses certificate to establish secure communication over HTTPS. But this certificate is independent from the one configured for backup server.

[morit]

Hi,
No, there is no Enterprise Manager.
The customer is using VBR only. In this case, is there any web services running on VBR?

[veremin]

No, there is none. Thanks!

[morit]

Thank you for the confirmation.