From ed547f6a4686decd6e1a5b7fd92798f8033d23f0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rodolphe Breard Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2019 17:46:11 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] Update the README --- README.md | 15 +++++++++------ 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index aa64712..b1a5307 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -14,17 +14,17 @@ The Automatic Certificate Management Environment (ACME), is an internet standard - RSA 2048, RSA 4096, ECDSA P-256 and ECDSA P-384 certificates - Fully customizable challenge validation action - Fully customizable archiving method (yes, you can use git or anything else) -- Run as a deamon: no need to set-up timers, crontab or other time-triggered process - Nice and simple configuration file +- Run as a deamon: no need to set-up timers, crontab or other time-triggered process - Retry of HTTPS request rejected with a badNonce or other recoverable errors - Optional private-key reuse (useful for [HPKP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Public_Key_Pinning)) - For a given certificate, each domain names may be validated using a different challenge. +- A standalone server dedicated to the tls-alpn-01 challenge validation ## Planned features -- A standalone server dedicated to the tls-alpn-01 challenge validation -- A set of hooks that can be used in most circumstances +- A pre-built set of hooks that can be used in most circumstances - Daemon and certificates management via the `acmectl` tool @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ The Automatic Certificate Management Environment (ACME), is an internet standard In order to compile ADMEd, you will need the [Rust](https://www.rust-lang.org/) compiler and its package manager, Cargo. The minimal required Rust version is 1.32.0, although it is recommended to use the latest stable one. -ACMEd depends on the OpenSSL. The minimal supported versions are those from the [openssl](https://docs.rs/openssl/) crate, currently OpenSSL 1.0.1 through 1.1.1 and LibreSSL 2.5 through 2.8. +ACMEd depends on the OpenSSL. The minimal supported versions are those from the [openssl](https://docs.rs/openssl/) crate, currently OpenSSL 1.0.1 through 1.1.1 and LibreSSL 2.5 through 2.8. The `tacd` executable also requires your OpenSSL/LibreSSL version to support TLS-ALPN. ``` cargo build --release @@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ strip target/release/acmed strip target/release/tacd ``` -The executable are located in the `target/release` directory. +The executables are located in the `target/release` directory. ## Frequently Asked Questions @@ -61,11 +61,14 @@ Short answer: No. Long answer: At some points in a certificate's life, ACMEd triggers hook in order to let you customize how some actions are done, therefore you can use those hooks to run any server configuration you wish. However, this may not be what you are looking for since it cannot proactively detect which certificates should be emitted since ACMEd only manages certificates that have already been declared in the configuration files. +### Is it suitable for beginners? + +It depends on what you call a beginner. This software is intended to be used by system administrator with a certain knowledge of their environment. Furthermore, it is also expected to know the bases of the ACME protocol. Let's Encrypt wrote a nice article about [how it works](https://letsencrypt.org/how-it-works/). + ### Why is RSA 2048 the default? Yes, ACMED support RSA 4096, ECDSA P-256 and ECDSA P-384. However, those are not (yet) fitted to be the default choice. It is not obvious at the first sight, but [RSA 4096](https://gnupg.org/faq/gnupg-faq.html#no_default_of_rsa4096) is NOT twice more secure than RSA 2048. In fact, it adds a lot more calculation while providing only a small security improvement. If you think you will use it anyway since you are more concerned about security than performance, please check your certificate chain up to the root. Most of the time, the root certificate and the intermediates will be RSA 2048 ones (that is the case for [Let’s Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/certificates/)). If so, using RSA 4096 in the final certificate will not add any additional security since a system's global security level is equal to the level of its weakest point. - ECDSA certificates may be a good alternative to RSA since, for the same security level, they are smaller and requires less computation, hence improve performance. Unfortunately, as X.509 certificates may be used in various contexts, some software may not support this not-so-recent technology. To achieve maximal compatibility while using ECC, you usually have to set-up an hybrid configuration with both an ECDSA and a RSA certificate to fall-back to. Therefore, even if you are encouraged to use ECDSA certificates, it should not currently be the default. That said, it may be in a soon future.