Client certificate HttpClient .Net Core Docker Linux

Question

I implemented a internal REST Service which consumes another (external) REST Service. The external service is secured with HTTPS with client certificate (and Tokens).

In the first implementation it was a service based on .NET Framework (4.6.2 of course windows) and the code looked like that:

        var certificate = new X509Certificate2("./ExternalCert.pfx", "supersecurepassword764689");
        var httpClientHandler = new HttpClientHandler
        {
            ClientCertificateOptions = ClientCertificateOption.Manual,
            ClientCertificates =
            {
                certificate
            },
            CookieContainer = this.cookieContainer,
        };
        this.httpClient = new HttpClient(httpClientHandler)
        {
            BaseAddress = new Uri(url)
        };

And it worked quite well. Now we are switching to ASP.NET Core 2 (based on .NET Core) and Docker. During development on my windows machine the code above worked aswell with .NET Core.

But now if I execute it inside of the docker container (of course linux) it doesn´t work anymore (SSL Error). (For now the certificate is copied into the container image, but it´s planed to store it with docker secrets).

I did some research and it seems *.pfx don´t work on linux and you have to generate a *.pem-file based on pfx. So I generated it with this command:

openssl pkcs12 -in ExternalCertificate.pfx -out ExternalCertificate.pem -nodes

Afterwards I replaced the following line:

var certificate = new X509Certificate2("./NewExternalCert.pem", "supersecurepassword764689");

and also tried:

var certificate = new X509Certificate2(File.ReadAllBytes("./NewExternalCert.pem"), "supersecurepassword764689");

Now I still get an error from the external service that the client certificate is missing but there is no exception in my application.

So what am I doing wrong? How can I send the certificate on linux? Is there a possiblity to do it on both OS the same way?

Thank you in advance for any advice!

Sounds like that part has many issues, github.com/dotnet/corefx/…✓ You might dig further to see which you hit and if there is already a solution. Open a new one if none matches yours. — Lex Li
– Lex Li, Commented Dec 13, 2017 at 19:51
Yeah, read a lot of them and tried some "solutions". I spent a lot of time trying different things and now I´m not sure if I miss something too obvious. — pr177
– pr177, Commented Dec 13, 2017 at 19:56
A quick way is to dig Microsoft unit test cases for that part, and see if they work on Linux. Then you get an idea whether Microsoft has already implemented it. — Lex Li
– Lex Li, Commented Dec 13, 2017 at 19:58

pr177 · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-14 20:27:08Z

5

I figured it out. You have to set up the linux environment as you have to install the certificate on windows.

I copied the certificates as part of the container image (Dockerfile) with:

COPY ExternalCert.pem /etc/ssl/certs/ExternalCert.pem

Afterwards the code works like intended

answered Dec 14, 2017 at 20:27

pr177

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1 Comment

100mil Over a year ago

Are you able to make request to your service ( I suppose which is running on docker) with client certificate after that fixed? Seems there is already open issue for that (github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/30989). I am facing same things right now that described on that issue. Thanks!

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