Certificate Management for Windows

Digital Certificates simplify the IT team’s task to authenticate devices and check for security when operating in unknown networks.

Utilizing a Mobile Device Management (MDM) or Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) platform can further enhance the deployment experience of Digital Certificates on devices, as well as provide enterprises additional features and benefits of implementing security across devices.

Scalefusion, through Certificate Management, helps enterprises streamline the process of deploying Digital Certificates to end users' devices by automatically provisioning digital identities onto devices without end user interaction. You can enable authentication on managed devices using Scalefusion.

The document describes certificate management and how Standalone certificates can be applied on managed devices.

Types of Certificates

1. Identity Certificate: These are the certificates that apps/browsers can use to identify the user and used for CBA (Cert Based Authentication). These are of typical .p12, .pfx formats
2. CA Certificate: These are the certificates that verify the Trust of the certificate being presented. Can be of .cer, .pem and .der formats.
3. Chained Certificates: Both 1 & 2 can contain a chain of certificate leading to a Leaf Node. That is the certificate payload/body can contain leaf certificate and the chain of issuing certificates.

Scalefusion Supported Certificates

Following types of certificates are supported under Scalefusion:

1. PKCS12(.p12)
2. PKCS1(cer, pem)

Supported Platforms

Configure Certificate Settings

Step 1: Upload a certificate to Dashboard

To configure certificates that can be deployed to devices, follow these steps:

1. On Scalefusion Dashboard, navigate to Enterprise > Certificate Management and click on UPLOAD CERTIFICATE
   

   

2. This opens a new window Upload a Certificate
   1. Enter a name for the Certificate: Enter a display name for Identification purpose
   2. Upload Certificate file: Browse for the file and upload. Only .p12, .cer or .pem file formats are supported
      If the uploaded certificate happens to be .p12 or pfx that is an Identity certificate, following additional details need to be entered:
      
      Enter a Password for the file: A key that encrypts the certificate
   3. Click SAVE after entering all details.
      

      

The uploaded certificate with details would be displayed on Certificate Management screen

Step 2: Apply Certificates to Device profiles / devices

Once certificates are uploaded, they need to be pushed to device profiles / devices. This is done through Publish under Actions

1. Publish: Publishes certificate on selected device profile(s) / device(s). To publish,
   1. Click on Publish under Actions, in front of the certificate that has to be published. This opens a new window containing list of all device profiles and devices configured on Dashboard.
   2. Select the device profiles / devices on which the certificate has to be published and click PUBLISH.

The certificate will get associated with the device profile / device

When a certificate is installed on device, the count of devices (for the certificate which is published) reflects under Installed On heading on Certificate Management screen

Other Actions on Uploaded Certificates

1. Unpublish: Unpublishes certificate from the device profiles / devices. To Unpublish,
   1. Click on Unpublish under Actions, in front of the certificate that has to be unpublished. This opens a window containing list of all the device profiles and devices on which certificate is already published.
   2. Unselect the profiles and devices and click the button UNPUBLISH. The certificate will get uninstalled from the device(s) / device profiles.

1. Delete: Deleting a certificate will uninstall the certificate from all devices and delete the stored certificate. Clicking Delete will show a Dialog for Confirmation "This Certificate is currently installed on the XX Device Profiles and used in XX Wifi Configurations? Are you sure you want to delete?"

The confirmation dialog appears only if the certificate is pushed else a simple confirm dialog box appears.

Additional Features

Expanded view of a Certificate

Clicking on down arrow before certificate name shows the expanded view of it. A certificate payload/file can be a single certificate or a chained certificate. Depending upon the same the expanded view shows up:

• Single Certificate: Shows the Issued By, Expiry and Key Usage

• Chained Certificate: Expanded view displays a List view and selecting each certificate displays its properties. A certificate in the chain can be,

1. Root CA Certificate (is usually self-signed and hence no Issued By information is available)
2. Intermediate CA Certificate (there can be n number of Intermediate CAs in a Certificate Hierarchy, usually it’s just one. Displays Issued By, as the intermediate CA certificate can be issued by another intermediate CA in the chain above or Root CA)
3. Leaf Node Certificate (Displays Issued By which can be an Intermediate CA and extremely rarely the Root CA)

Where are the Certificates stored after installation

• In Windows 10, certificates are stored in Certificate Manager on your system. You can check and validate whether certificates are installed on the device through Certificate Manager application on your device.

Certificate based Enterprise Wifi Profile

On Windows devices, certificates can be associated with Enterprise Wifi configurations. As a result, all the devices where this Wifi has been published as well as Wifi being pushed on new Profiles, it will be sent with the Certificate payload.

1. On the Dashboard, Navigate to Device Profiles & Policies > All Configurations > Global Settings > Wifi Settings
2. Click on Create New > Enterprise for Windows or Edit an existing Wifi configuration created for Windows
   

   

3. In the Wifi Configuration window, when you scroll down there would be an option (drop-down) to select certificate (Identity and Trusted) that are previously uploaded

   

1. Select certificates that need to be associated with the Wifi configuration, and click Submit

The certificate will get associated with the Wifi Configuration.