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WSO2 products use asymmetric encryption by default for the purposes of authentication and protection of data. In asymmetric encryption, keystores (with private keys and public key certificates) and truststores (with only public key certificates) are created and stored for a product. It is possible to have multiple keystores so that the keys used for different use cases are kept unique. The following topics explain more details on keystores and truststores, and how they are used in WSO2 products.

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Follow the recommendations given below when you set up your keystores. 

• Maintain one primary keystore primary keystore for encrypting sensitive internal data such as admin passwords and any other sensitive information found at both product-level and product feature-level configurations/configuration files. Note that the primary keystore will also be used for signing messages when the product communicates with external parties (such SAML, OIDC id_token signing).

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  In new versions of WSO2 products, you can have separate keystores for encrypting sensitive information for internal data encryption as a recommended practice. See Configuring Keystores in WSO2 Products for details.

• Maintain another secondary keystore, containing the server’s public key certificate for authenticating communication over SSL/TLS (for both Tomcat and Axis2 level HTTP connections).

• If your deployment contains multiple products, instances of the same product must use the same keystore for SSL. Different products can use different keystores for SSL, but it is not mandatory.

• It is recommended to use a CA-signed keystore for SSL communication; however, this is not mandatory. Even a self-signed certificate may suffice if it can be trusted by the clients.

• The keystore used for SSL must contain the same password for the Keystore and private key due to a Tomcat limitation.

• The primary keystore used for admin passwords and other data encryption requirements can be a self-signed one. There is no value added by using a CA-signed keystore for this purpose as it is not used for any external communication.

• The primary keystore's public key certificate must have the Data Encipherment key usage to allow direct encipherment of raw data using its public key. This key usage is already included in the self-signed certificate that is included in the default wso2carbon.jks keystore. If the Data Encipherment key usage is not included in your public key certificate, the followin following error can occur when you attempt data encryption:
  

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  Exception in thread "main" org.wso2.ciphertool.CipherToolException: Error initializing Cipher at org.wso2.ciphertool.CipherTool.handleException(CipherTool.java:861) at org.wso2.ciphertool.CipherTool.initCipher(CipherTool.java:202) at org.wso2.ciphertool.CipherTool.main(CipherTool.java:80) Caused by: java.security.InvalidKeyException: Wrong key usage at javax.crypto.Cipher.init(DashoA13..) at javax.crypto.Cipher.init(DashoA13..) at org.wso2.ciphertool.CipherTool.initCipher(CipherTool.java:200) ... 1 more

• Optionally, you can set up separate keystores for message-level data encryption in WS-Security.

• If you already have the required keystores for your product, you can generate CA-signed certificates and import them into the keystores. It is not recommended to create new keystores for the purpose of replacing the certificates in the keystore. See Adding CA-signed certificates to keystores for instructions.

Managing keystores 

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All the functions of keystore management are exposed via APIs. As a result, if you are writing a custom extension to a WSO2 product (e.g., for WSO2 ESB mediators), you can directly access the configured keystores using the API. The API hides the underlying complexity, allowing you to easily use it in third-party applications to manage their keystores as well.

This functionality is bundled with the following feature that is installed in your product.

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