iDRAC7 includes a Web server that is configured to use the industry-standard
SSL security protocol to transfer encrypted data over a network. Built
upon asymmetric encryption technology, SSL is widely accepted for
providing authenticated and encrypted communication between clients
and servers to prevent eavesdropping across a network.
An SSL-enabled system can perform the following tasks:
- Authenticate itself to an SSL-enabled client
- Allow the two systems to establish an encrypted connection
The encryption process provides a high level of data protection.
iDRAC7 employs the 128-bit SSL encryption standard, the most secure
form of encryption generally available for Internet browsers in North
America.
iDRAC7 Web server has a Dell self-signed unique SSL digital certificate
by default. You can replace the default SSL certificate with a certificate
signed by a well-known Certificate Authority (CA). A Certificate Authority
is a business entity that is recognized in the Information Technology
industry for meeting high standards of reliable screening, identification,
and other important security criteria. Examples of CAs include Thawte
and VeriSign. To initiate the process of obtaining a CA-signed certificate,
use either iDRAC7 Web interface or RACADM interface to generate a
Certificate Signing Request (CSR) with your company’s information.
Then, submit the generated CSR to a CA such as VeriSign or Thawte.
The CA can be a root CA or an intermediate CA. After you receive the
CA-signed SSL certificate, upload this to iDRAC.
For each iDRAC to be trusted by the management station, that iDRAC’s
SSL certificate must be placed in the management station’s certificate
store. Once the SSL certificate is installed on the management stations,
supported browsers can access iDRAC without certificate warnings.
You can also upload a custom signing certificate to sign the SSL
certificate, rather than relying on the default signing certificate
for this function. By importing one custom signing certificate into
all management stations, all the iDRACs using the custom signing certificate
are trusted. If a custom signing certificate is uploaded when a custom
SSL certificate is already in-use, then the custom SSL certificate
is disabled and a one-time auto-generated SSL certificate, signed
with the custom signing certificate, is used. You can download the
custom signing certificate (without the private key). You can also
delete an existing custom signing certificate. After deleting the
custom signing certificate, iDRAC resets and auto-generates a new
self-signed SSL certificate. If a self-signed certificate is regenerated,
then the trust must be re-established between that iDRAC and the management
workstation. Auto-generated SSL certificates are self-signed and have
an expiration date of seven years and one day and a start date of
one day in the past (for different time zone settings on management
stations and the iDRAC).
The iDRAC7 Web server SSL certificate supports the asterisk character
(*) as part of the left-most component of the Common Name when generating
a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). For example, *.qa.com, or *.company.qa.com.
This is called a wildcard certificate. If a wildcard CSR is generated
outside of iDRAC, you can have a signed single wildcard SSL certificate
that you can upload for multiple iDRACs and all the iDRACs are trusted
by the supported browsers. While connecting to iDRAC Web interface
using a supported browser that supports a wildcard certificate, the
iDRAC is trusted by the browser. While launching viewers, the iDRACs
are trusted by the viewer clients.