Connecting to multiple slots with PKCS#11

A single slot in Client SDK 5 PKCS #11 library represents a single connection to a cluster in AWS CloudHSM. With Client SDK 5, you can configure your PKCS11 library to allow multiple slots to connect users to multiple CloudHSM clusters from a single PKCS#11 application.

Use the instructions in this topic to make your application use multi-slot functionality to connect with multiple clusters.

Multi-slot prerequisites

• Two or more AWS CloudHSM clusters to which you’d like to connect to, along with their cluster certificates.

• An EC2 instance with Security Groups correctly configured to connect to all of the clusters above. For more information about how to set up a cluster and the client instance, refer to Getting started with AWS CloudHSM.

• To set up multi-slot functionality, you must have already downloaded and installed the PKCS #11 library. If you have not already done this, refer to the instructions in Install the PKCS #11 library for Client SDK 5.

Configure the PKCS #11 Library for multi-slot functionality

To configure your PKCS #11 library for multi-slot functionality, follow these steps:

1. Identify the clusters you want to connect to using multi-slot functionality.

2. Add these clusters to your PKCS #11 configuration by following the instructions in configure-pkcs11 add-cluster

3. The next time your PKCS#11 application runs, it will have multi-slot functionality.

configure-pkcs11 add-cluster

When connecting to multiple slots with PKCS #11, use the configure-pkcs11 add-cluster command to add a cluster to your configuration.

Syntax

configure-pkcs11 add-cluster [OPTIONS]
        --cluster-id <CLUSTER ID> 
        [--region <REGION>]
        [--endpoint <ENDPOINT>]
        [--hsm-ca-cert <HSM CA CERTIFICATE FILE>]
        [--server-client-cert-file <CLIENT CERTIFICATE FILE>]
        [--server-client-key-file <CLIENT KEY FILE>]
        [-h, --help]

Examples

Add a cluster using the cluster-id parameter

Use the configure-pkcs11 add-cluster along with the cluster-id parameter to add a cluster (with the ID of cluster-1234567) to your configuration.

Linux

$ sudo /opt/cloudhsm/bin/configure-pkcs11 add-cluster --cluster-id cluster-1234567

Windows

C:\Program Files\Amazon\CloudHSM\> .\configure-pkcs11.exe add-cluster --cluster-id cluster-1234567

Tip

If using configure-pkcs11 add-cluster with the cluster-id parameter doesn't result in the cluster being added, refer to the following example for a longer version of this command that also requires --region and --endpoint parameters to identify the cluster being added. If, for example, the region of the cluster is different than the one configured as your AWS CLI default, you should use the --region parameter to use the correct region. Additionally, you have the ability to specify the AWS CloudHSM API endpoint to use for the call, which may be necessary for various network setups, such as using VPC interface endpoints that don’t use the default DNS hostname for AWS CloudHSM.

Add a cluster using cluster-id, endpoint, and region parameters

Use the configure-pkcs11 add-cluster along with the cluster-id, endpoint, and region parameters to add a cluster (with the ID of cluster-1234567) to your configuration.

Linux

        $ sudo /opt/cloudhsm/bin/configure-pkcs11 add-cluster --cluster-id cluster-1234567 --region us-east-1 --endpoint https://cloudhsmv2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
                    

Windows

        C:\Program Files\Amazon\CloudHSM\> .\configure-pkcs11.exe add-cluster --cluster-id cluster-1234567--region us-east-1 --endpoint https://cloudhsmv2.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
                    

For more information about the --cluster-id, --region, and --endpoint parameters, see Parameters.

Parameters

--cluster-id <Cluster ID>

Makes a DescribeClusters call to find all of the HSM elastic network interface (ENI) IP addresses in the cluster associated with the cluster ID. The system adds the ENI IP addresses to the AWS CloudHSM configuration files.

Note

If you use the --cluster-id parameter from an EC2 instance within a VPC that does not have access to the public internet, then you must create an interface VPC endpoint to connect with AWS CloudHSM. For more information about VPC endpoints, see AWS CloudHSM and VPC endpoints.

Required: Yes

--endpoint <Endpoint>

Specify the AWS CloudHSM API endpoint used for making the DescribeClusters call. You must set this option in combination with --cluster-id.

Required: No

--hsm-ca-cert <HsmCA Certificate Filepath>

Specifies the filepath to the HSM CA certificate.

Required: No

--region <Region>

Specify the region of your cluster. You must set this option in combination with --cluster-id.

If you don’t supply the --region parameter, the system chooses the region by attempting to read the AWS_DEFAULT_REGION or AWS_REGION environment variables. If those variables aren’t set, then the system checks the region associated with your profile in your AWS config file (typically ~/.aws/config) unless you specified a different file in the AWS_CONFIG_FILE environment variable. If none of the above are set, the system defaults to the us-east-1 region.

Required: No

--server-client-cert-file <Client Certificate Filepath>

Path to the client certificate used for TLS client-server mutual authentication.

Only use this option if you don’t wish to use the default key and SSL/TLS certificate we include with Client SDK 5. You must set this option in combination with --server-client-key-file.

Required: No

--server-client-key-file <Client Key Filepath>

Path to the client key used for TLS client-server mutual authentication.

Only use this option if you don’t wish to use the default key and SSL/TLS certificate we include with Client SDK 5. You must set this option in combination with --server-client-cert-file.

Required: No

configure-pkcs11 remove-cluster

When connecting to multiple slots with PKCS#11, use the configure-pkcs11 remove-cluster command to remove a cluster from available PKCS #11 slots.

Syntax

configure-pkcs11 remove-cluster [OPTIONS]
        --cluster-id <CLUSTER ID>
        [-h, --help]

Examples

Remove a cluster using the cluster-id parameter

Use the configure-pkcs11 remove-cluster along with the cluster-id parameter to remove a cluster (with the ID of cluster-1234567) from your configuration.

Linux

$ sudo /opt/cloudhsm/bin/configure-pkcs11 remove-cluster --cluster-id cluster-1234567
            

Windows

C:\Program Files\Amazon\CloudHSM\> .\configure-pkcs11.exe remove-cluster --cluster-id cluster-1234567
            

For more information about the --cluster-id parameter, see Parameters.

Parameter

--cluster-id <Cluster ID>

The ID of the cluster to remove from the configuration

Required: Yes