Register your CA certificate - AWS IoT Core
Register a CA certificate (console)Register a CA certificate (CLI)

Register your CA certificate

You might need to register your certificate authority (CA) with AWS IoT if you are using client certificates signed by a CA that AWS IoT doesn't recognize.

If you want clients to automatically register their client certificates with AWS IoT when they first connect, the CA that signed the client certificates must be registered with AWS IoT. Otherwise, you don't need to register the CA certificate that signed the client certificates.

Note

A CA certificate can be registered by only one account in a Region.

Register a CA certificate (console)

Note

Make sure you have the root CA's certificate file and private key file before you begin.

This procedure also requires using the command line interface to run OpenSSL v1.1.1i commands.

To register a CA certificate using the AWS IoT console

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the AWS IoT console.

  2. In the left navigation pane, choose Secure, choose CAs, and then Register.

  3. In Select a CA, choose Register CA.

  4. In Register a CA certificate, follow the steps displayed.

    Steps 1 - 4 are performed in the command line interface.

    Steps 5 and 6 require the files created in Steps 3 and 4.

  5. If you want to activate this certificate when you register it, check Activate CA certificate.

    The CA certificate must be active before you can register any client certificates that are signed by it.

  6. If you want to enable this certificate to automatically register client certificates signed by this certificate, select Enable auto-registration of device certificates.

  7. Choose Register CA certificate to complete the registration.

The CA certificate appears in the list of certificate authorities with its current status.

Register a CA certificate (CLI)

Note

Make sure you have the root CA's certificate file and private key file before you begin.

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 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 \
    -out verification_cert_csr_filename

    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 \
    -CA root_CA_pem_filename \
    -CAkey root_CA_key_filename \
    -CAcreateserial \
    -out verification_cert_pem_filename \
    -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_pem_filename \
    --verification-cert file://verification_cert_pem_filename

    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.