I have been trying to get a webservice we are creating to require client certificates for connections for several weeks and haven't been having much luck. I thought that I would attempt to make a simple website that requires client certificates to remove all the additional webservice code from the equation. Even though all the online tutorials made this look like it would be a much easier process, I've still had no luck. I'm not sure if I'm missing a settings in IIS or something simply isn't installed.
The server is Windows Server 2008 Web Edition. My local client box is Windows 7.
I have detailed every step I took to create this test website.
First I had to create my test certificates. From a Windows 7 SDK 7.1 Command Prompt on my local machine, I ran these commands:
makecert.exe -r -n "CN=My Personal CA" -pe -sv MyPersonalCA.pvk -a sha1 -len 2048 -cy authority MyPersonalCA.cer
makecert.exe -iv MyPersonalCA.pvk -ic MyPersonalCA.cer -n "CN=John Doe" -pe -sv JohnDoe.pvk -a sha1 -len 2048 -sky exchange JohnDoe.cer -eku 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.2
pvk2pfx.exe -pvk JohnDoe.pvk -spc JohnDoe.cer -pfx JohnDoe.pfx -po password
After these commands, I had these files:
MyPersonalCA.cer
MyPersonalCA.pvk
JohnDoe.cer
JohnDoe.pfx
JohnDoe.pvk
I then imported the following into IE on my local machine (Tools->Internet Options->Content->Certificates-Import): JohnDoe.pfx into the "Personal" store (in "Advanced" make sure that "Client Authentication" is selected) MyPersonalCA.cer into the "Trusted Root Certification Authrorities" store
On the server, I imported the follosing certs using the MMC Certificates snap-in:
JohnDoe.cer into [Local Computer\Personal] and [Current User\Personal]
MyPersonalCA.cer into [Local Computer\Trusted Root Certification Authorities] and
[Current User\Trusted Root Certification Authorities]
I created a blank VB.NET (VS2008) web application and deployed it to the server. In IIS, I assigned this application to an application pool running as administrator to avoid any permissions issues (yes, I'll fix this later).
In IIS, I changes the SSL Settings for the application like this:
Check "Require SSL"
Under "Client Certificates", select "Require"
I also assigned 403.7 and 403.5 errors to custom error pages so I could tell which 403 error I was getting.
IE should prompt to select a client certificate when going to the page. Since newer versions of IE do not prompt if there are no matching certificates, I found an old box with IE6, and on that box (with the certificates installed) I do get the Client Certificate dialog box, but no certificates are listed. IE10 on my developer box never opens a prompt. I just get an immediate 403.7
Can anybody tell me where I am going wrong here? Does IIS require additional setup for this to work?
While submitting this question, I stumbled across another post talking about MakeCTL and netssh. From this I found that if I run:
netssh http show sslcert
I get a list of settings including this:
Negotiate Client Certificate : Disabled
Does this need to be turned on? If so, how do I turn this on? The limited instructions I've managed to find make it sound like I would need to delete the SSL binding and re-add it. I'm hesitant to play around with this since the server is in use.