Configuring Keystores

Keystores allow you to manage the keys that are stored in a database. A Keystore must contain a key pair with a certificate signed by a trusted Certification Authority (CA). A CA is an entity trusted by all parties participating in a secure communication. This entity will certify the trusted party's public keys by signing them. Since the certificate authority is trusted, it will accept the public key certificates signed by that particular CA as trusted. WSO2 Carbon uses several keystores to power the HTTPS transport and to encrypt other confidential information such as administrator passwords.

The keystores used to encrypt administrator passwords and other confidential information in Carbon is configured in the <PRODUCT_HOME>/repository/conf/carbon.xml file (under the <security> element). Two keystore elements in the carbon.xml file can be used to configure the keystore: Primary keystore (Keystore) and Registry Keystore (RegistryKeystore). The default keystore named wso2carbon.jks, can be found in the <PRODUCT_HOME>/repository/resources/security directory.

Primary Keystore

KeyStore can be considered as the default Carbon keystore element. This is primarily used for storing keys certifying SSL connections to Carbon servers, and for encrypting administrator passwords and other confidential information. The keystore configuration that should be added to the carbon.xml file is as follows.

<KeyStore>
	<Location>${carbon.home}/resources/security/wso2carbon.jks</Location>
	<Type>JKS</Type>
	<Password>wso2carbon</Password>
	<KeyAlias>wso2carbon</KeyAlias>
	<KeyPassword>wso2carbon</KeyPassword>
</KeyStore>

Registry Keystore

RegistryKeyStore is a separate keystore, used only for the purpose of encrypting/decrypting meta data to the registry. The registry keystore configuration that should be added to the carbon.xml file is as follows.

<RegistryKeyStore>
            <!-- Keystore file location-->
            <Location>${carbon.home}/repository/resources/security/wso2carbon.jks</Location>
            <!-- Keystore type (JKS/PKCS12 etc.)-->
            <Type>JKS</Type>
            <!-- Keystore password-->
            <Password>wso2carbon</Password>
            <!-- Private Key alias-->
            <KeyAlias>wso2carbon</KeyAlias>
            <!-- Private Key password-->
            <KeyPassword>wso2carbon</KeyPassword>
</RegistryKeyStore>

Keystore of the HTTPS transport

The keystore of the HTTPS transport is configured in the axis2.xml file under the HTTPS transport receiver and HTTPS transport sender configurations. 

<parameter name="keystore" locked="false">
	<KeyStore>
		<Location>resources/security/wso2carbon.jks</Location>
		<Type>JKS</Type>
		<Password>wso2carbon</Password>
		<KeyPassword>wso2carbon</KeyPassword>
	</KeyStore>
</parameter>
<parameter name="truststore" locked="false">
	<TrustStore>
		<Location>resources/security/client-truststore.jks</Location>
		<Type>JKS</Type>
		<Password>wso2carbon</Password>
	</TrustStore>
</parameter>

The default keystore named wso2carbon.jks, can be found in the <PRODUCT_HOME>/repository/resources/security directory. To change the keystores used by the HTTPS transport, update the HTTPS transport receiver and sender configurations by specifying the paths to keystores files and other attributes of the files such as the keystores passwords.

The <Password> element should indicate the password of the keystore file.
The <KeyPassword> element should point to the password required to access the private key.