International Business Machines Corporation
Server/server certificates exchange flow

Abstract:

Embodiments herein describe providing a certificate signed by a local CA to an unauthenticated server rather than obtaining a certificated signed by a third-party CA. A server that already has a certificate that was signed by a third-party CA may want to establish secure connection with an unauthenticated server which does not have a signed certificate. The unauthenticated server needs a certificate signed by a CA trusted by the server that already has a signed certificate (referred to herein as the authenticated server). To do so, the unauthenticated server sends login credentials to the authenticated server so that this server knows it can trust the unauthenticated server. In turn, the authenticated server can send its signed certificate to the unauthenticated server so it can verify the authenticated server. Once verified, the authenticated server generates a signed certificate for the unauthenticated server using a local CA.