E-Series (E2860) certificate CSR request

[sanadmin_do]

Two of our E-Series certificates have expired. We would now like to have our internal CA issue two new ones. However, since September 2024, our colleagues at the CA have required CSR requests with a length of 4096 bits. Can the length of 4096 bits be set in the SANtricity environment? Or are the CSR requests always issued with 2048 bits?

[ahmadm · Accepted solution]

As of SANtricity OS 11.80.1, the E-Series generated CSR for management certificate uses a 3072 bit key. If 4096 is desired, then the CSR need to be generated externally (e.g Using openSSL).

As for SANtricity OS 11.80, the E-Series external key management service CSR generated by E-Series defaults to 3072 bits key. The default can be increased to 4096 bits if needed, but this change / method does not apply to the management certificate of E-Series Web-UI.

[sanadmin_do]

Thanks for the information. I'm now trying to create the CSR request with the parameter "4096". But I always get the error message "Encountered "keySize" at line 1, column 201. Was expecting: "file" ...". I specified keySize="4096". According to the documentation, this is correct.

[ahmadm]

I am not sure which utility you are using to generate the CSR, but below are the commands to generate the CSR and 4096 bits key using openssl. Once the CSR is signed by your CA, then you can upload the int/root certs, the signed server cert and the private key (generated below) into SANtricity System Manager.

• openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -out server_cert_private.key -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:4096
• openssl req -new -key server_cert_private.key -out server_cert_csr.csr