Updating a CA (CLI)
The following procedures show how to update the status and revocation configuration of an existing CA using the AWS CLI.
Note
Changes to the revocation configuration of a CA do not affect certificates that were already issued. For managed revocation to work, older certificates must be re-issued.
To update the status of your private CA (AWS CLI)
Use the update-certificate-authority command.
This is useful when you have an existing CA with status DISABLED that
you want to set to ACTIVE. To begin, confirm the initial status of the
CA with the following command.
$aws acm-pca describe-certificate-authority \ --certificate-authority-arn "arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID" \ --output json
This results in output similar to the following.
{
"CertificateAuthority": {
"Arn": "arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID",
"CreatedAt": "2021-03-05T14:24:12.867000-08:00",
"LastStateChangeAt": "2021-03-08T13:17:40.221000-08:00",
"Type": "ROOT",
"Serial": "serial_number",
"Status": "DISABLED",
"NotBefore": "2021-03-08T07:46:27-08:00",
"NotAfter": "2022-03-08T08:46:27-08:00",
"CertificateAuthorityConfiguration": {
"KeyAlgorithm": "RSA_2048",
"SigningAlgorithm": "SHA256WITHRSA",
"Subject": {
"Country": "US",
"Organization": "Example Corp",
"OrganizationalUnit": "Sales",
"State": "WA",
"CommonName": "www.example.com",
"Locality": "Seattle"
}
},
"RevocationConfiguration": {
"CrlConfiguration": {
"Enabled": true,
"ExpirationInDays": 7,
"CustomCname": "alternative.example.com",
"S3BucketName": "DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET1"
},
"OcspConfiguration": {
"Enabled": false
}
}
}
}The following command sets the status of the private CA to ACTIVE.
This is possible only if a valid certificate is installed on the CA.
$aws acm-pca update-certificate-authority \ --certificate-authority-arn arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID\ --status "ACTIVE"
Inspect the new status of the CA.
$aws acm-pca describe-certificate-authority \ --certificate-authority-arn "arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID" \ --output json
The status now appears as ACTIVE.
{
"CertificateAuthority": {
"Arn": "arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID",
"CreatedAt": "2021-03-05T14:24:12.867000-08:00",
"LastStateChangeAt": "2021-03-08T13:23:09.352000-08:00",
"Type": "ROOT",
"Serial": "serial_number",
"Status": "ACTIVE",
"NotBefore": "2021-03-08T07:46:27-08:00",
"NotAfter": "2022-03-08T08:46:27-08:00",
"CertificateAuthorityConfiguration": {
"KeyAlgorithm": "RSA_2048",
"SigningAlgorithm": "SHA256WITHRSA",
"Subject": {
"Country": "US",
"Organization": "Example Corp",
"OrganizationalUnit": "Sales",
"State": "WA",
"CommonName": "www.example.com",
"Locality": "Seattle"
}
},
"RevocationConfiguration": {
"CrlConfiguration": {
"Enabled": true,
"ExpirationInDays": 7,
"CustomCname": "alternative.example.com",
"S3BucketName": "DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET1"
},
"OcspConfiguration": {
"Enabled": false
}
}
}
}In some cases, you might have an active CA with no revocation mechanism configured. If you want to begin using a certificate revocation list (CRL), use the following procedure.
To add a CRL to an existing CA (AWS CLI)
-
Use the following command to inspect the current status of the CA.
$aws acm-pca describe-certificate-authority --certificate-authority-arn arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID--output jsonThe output confirms that the CA has status
ACTIVEbut is not configured to use a CRL.{ "CertificateAuthority": { "Arn": "arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID", "CreatedAt": "2021-03-08T14:36:26.449000-08:00", "LastStateChangeAt": "2021-03-08T14:50:52.224000-08:00", "Type": "ROOT", "Serial": "serial_number", "Status": "ACTIVE", "NotBefore": "2021-03-08T13:46:50-08:00", "NotAfter": "2022-03-08T14:46:50-08:00", "CertificateAuthorityConfiguration": { "KeyAlgorithm": "RSA_2048", "SigningAlgorithm": "SHA256WITHRSA", "Subject": { "Country": "US", "Organization": "Example Corp", "OrganizationalUnit": "Sales", "State": "WA", "CommonName": "www.example.com", "Locality": "Seattle" } }, "RevocationConfiguration": { "CrlConfiguration": { "Enabled": false }, "OcspConfiguration": { "Enabled": false } } } } -
Create and save a file with a name such as
revoke_config.txtto define your CRL configuration parameters.{ "CrlConfiguration":{ "Enabled":true, "ExpirationInDays":7, "S3BucketName":"DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET" } } -
Use the update-certificate-authority command and the revocation configuration file to update the CA.
$aws acm-pca update-certificate-authority \ --certificate-authority-arn arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID\ --revocation-configuration file://revoke_config.txt -
Again inspect the status of the CA.
$aws acm-pca describe-certificate-authority --certificate-authority-arn arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID--output jsonThe output confirms that CA is now configured to use a CRL.
{ "CertificateAuthority": { "Arn": "arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID", "CreatedAt": "2021-03-08T14:36:26.449000-08:00", "LastStateChangeAt": "2021-03-08T14:50:52.224000-08:00", "Type": "ROOT", "Serial": "serial_numbner", "Status": "ACTIVE", "NotBefore": "2021-03-08T13:46:50-08:00", "NotAfter": "2022-03-08T14:46:50-08:00", "CertificateAuthorityConfiguration": { "KeyAlgorithm": "RSA_2048", "SigningAlgorithm": "SHA256WITHRSA", "Subject": { "Country": "US", "Organization": "Example Corp", "OrganizationalUnit": "Sales", "State": "WA", "CommonName": "www.example.com", "Locality": "Seattle" } }, "RevocationConfiguration": { "CrlConfiguration": { "Enabled": true, "ExpirationInDays": 7, "S3BucketName": "DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET1", }, "OcspConfiguration": { "Enabled": false } } } }In some cases, you might want to add OCSP revocation support instead of enabling a CRL as in the previous procedure. In that case, use the following steps.
To add OCSP support to an existing CA (AWS CLI)
-
Create and save a file with a name such as
revoke_config.txtto define your OCSP parameters.{ "OcspConfiguration":{ "Enabled":true } } -
Use the update-certificate-authority command and the revocation configuration file to update the CA.
$aws acm-pca update-certificate-authority \ --certificate-authority-arn arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID\ --revocation-configuration file://revoke_config.txt -
Again inspect the status of the CA.
$aws acm-pca describe-certificate-authority --certificate-authority-arnarn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID--output jsonThe output confirms that CA is now configured to use OCSP.
{ "CertificateAuthority": { "Arn": "arn:aws:acm-pca:region:account:certificate-authority/CA_ID", "CreatedAt": "2021-03-08T14:36:26.449000-08:00", "LastStateChangeAt": "2021-03-08T14:50:52.224000-08:00", "Type": "ROOT", "Serial": "serial_number", "Status": "ACTIVE", "NotBefore": "2021-03-08T13:46:50-08:00", "NotAfter": "2022-03-08T14:46:50-08:00", "CertificateAuthorityConfiguration": { "KeyAlgorithm": "RSA_2048", "SigningAlgorithm": "SHA256WITHRSA", "Subject": { "Country": "US", "Organization": "Example Corp", "OrganizationalUnit": "Sales", "State": "WA", "CommonName": "www.example.com", "Locality": "Seattle" } }, "RevocationConfiguration": { "CrlConfiguration": { "Enabled": false }, "OcspConfiguration": { "Enabled": true } } } }
Note
You can also configure both CRL and OCSP support on a CA.
