Register your CA certificate

These procedures register a CA certificate with AWS IoT.

Register a CA certificate (console)

Note

To register a CA certificate in the console, start in the console at Register CA certificate.

Register a CA certificate (CLI)

Make sure you have the following available on your computer before you continue:

• The root CA's certificate file (referenced below as root_CA_cert_filename.pem)

• The root CA certificate's private key file (referenced below as root_CA_key_filename.key)

• OpenSSL v1.1.1i or later

To register a CA certificate using the AWS CLI

1. Use get-registration-code to get a registration code from AWS IoT. Save the registrationCode returned to use as the Common Name of the private key verification certificate.

   aws iot get-registration-code

2. Generate a key pair for the private key verification certificate:

   openssl genrsa -out verification_cert_key_filename.key 2048

3. Create a certificate signing request (CSR) for the private key verification certificate. Set the Common Name field of the certificate to the registrationCode returned by get-registration-code.

   openssl req -new \
       -key verification_cert_key_filename.key \
       -out verification_cert_csr_filename.csr

   You are prompted for some information, including the Common Name for the certificate.

   You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
   into your certificate request.
   What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
   There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
   For some fields there will be a default value,
   If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
   -----
   Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:
       State or Province Name (full name) []:
       Locality Name (for example, city) []:
       Organization Name (for example, company) []:
       Organizational Unit Name (for example, section) []:
       Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:your_registration_code
       Email Address []:
   
       Please enter the following 'extra' attributes
       to be sent with your certificate request
       A challenge password []:
       An optional company name []:

4. Use the CSR to create a private key verification certificate:

   openssl x509 -req \
       -in verification_cert_csr_filename.csr \
       -CA root_CA_cert_filename.pem \
       -CAkey root_CA_key_filename.key \
       -CAcreateserial \
       -out verification_cert_filename.pem \
       -days 500 -sha256

5. Register the CA certificate with AWS IoT. Pass in the CA certificate filename and the private key verification certificate filename to the register-ca-certificate command:

   aws iot register-ca-certificate \
       --ca-certificate file://root_CA_cert_filename.pem \
       --verification-cert file://verification_cert_filename.pem

   This command returns the certificateId, if successful.

6. At this point, the CA certificate has been registered with AWS IoT, but is not active. The CA certificate must be active before you can register any client certificates that are signed by it.

   This step activates the CA certificate.

   Use the update-certificate CLI command to activate the CA certificate:

   aws iot update-ca-certificate \
       --certificate-id certificateId \
       --new-status ACTIVE

Use the describe-ca-certificate command to see the status of the CA certificate.