Client certificates

The 1E Client for macOS needs to have the client authentication certificate and the public certificates for the chain of trust for the Tachyon Switch in the System key chain.

First, you need to issue a certificate and create the .pfx file.

Key Store method

The client certificate, and Certificate Authority (CA) certificate(s) for the Switch certificate, are stored within the macOS Key Store.

a. Obtain and import Certificate Authority (CA) certificates

You can skip this step if the Certificate Authority (CA) certificates used by the client and the Switch are the same, and are included in the client certificate. 

If the client certificate does not contain the CA certificates for itself, or the CA certificates used by the Switch, then the individual CA certificates will need to be obtained and imported into the macOS Key Store as follows:

1. Obtain Certificate Authority (CA) certificates as individual .cer files
   1. They must be exported individually because when presented with a bundle of certificates the Keychain Access UI only imports the last one it encounters.
   2. Use Microsoft’s Manage Computer Certificates (MMC) to export as a .cer file using base-64 encoded X.509 format. 
2. Copy the certificate .cer file(s) onto the macOS device.
3. Open Finder and double-click on each .cer file in turn to import each certificate into the macOS Keychain store. Or use File → Import Items... directly from Keychain Access.
4. Open Keychain Access; the certificates should appear under the system keychain.
5. If required, move (by dragging) each newly imported certificate to the System keychain, to ensure that it is trusted by all users and local system processes including the 1E Client which will run on this macOS machine.
6. Starting with the root CA certificate, if it is shown as not trusted, double-click to open. At the top left, above the Details section, expand the Trust section and ensure that When using this certificate Always Trust is selected and save the changes.

If you experience problems importing certificates using the Keychain Access app, for example if it reports error -25294 and CSSM_CODE_MEMORY_ERROR, an alternative way of importing public certificates and trusting them is to use the security command line tool. For example:

sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain <certificate.cer>

b. Create a client certificate for each macOS device

Each macOS device requires its own client certificate. Below is a guide for using a Microsoft Certificate Authority (CA) to issue a client certificate, then exporting it ready for installation on the device.

First, create a new Certificate template on your Certificate Authority by making a duplicate of either the Computer or Workstation template and configuring it with at least the following properties:

• General - use a suitable name such as Tachyon Devices and validity period.
• Request Handling - Allow private keys to be exported.
• Subject Name - Allow information to be supplied in the certificate request, rather than being built from Active Directory information.
• Extensions - Application Policies should contain only Client Authentication.
• Security - ensure relevant users and computers will be able to request certificates.

Please refer to Tachyon client requirements: Client Certificates for more information on client certificate requirements.

Once the new template is created on the Certificate Authority (CA), issue it.

Using the issued template, request a certificate for a target device, and export it in .pfx form and remember the password. The certificate and associated private key should be exported, together with all extended properties, except include all certificates in the certification path if possible and Enable certificate privacy.

c. Install a client certificate on each macOS device

To install a client certificate on each macOS device follow the instructions below.

1. Copy the client certificate onto the macOS device.
2. Open Keychain Access and from its File menu select Import Items, then navigate to the certificate. Double-click it and enter its password when prompted, then the client certificate and its associated private key should appear under the login keychain. Alternatively double-click on the .pfx file in the Finder.
3. Copy the client certificate and its associated private key separately under the System keychain.
4. Allow access to the private key for the  1E Client by following these instructions:
5. Open the Keychain Access app, either by pressing command-space and searching for keychain or from the Finder app, top left select Go > Utilities and double click to invoke the Keychain Access app.
6. Locate the private key of the Tachyon Agent within the System keychain.
7. The private key will appear under its associated public certificate.
8. Ensure the private key is present in the System keychain.
9. Double click the private key and select the Access Control tab.
10. Ensure Confirm before allowing access is selected and then add the Tachyon Agent binary to the Always allow access by these applications; adding the 1E Client by its path name, which is typically /Library/Application Support/1E/Client/1E.Client

An alternative approach to using the Keychain Access app is to import the .pfx file using the command-line security command:

sudo security import <download location>/<macOSpfx>.pfx -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain -t agg -f pkcs12 -P <password> -T '/Library/Application Support/1E/Client/1E.Client'

This command imports a client certificate and the associated private key (termed an identity on macOS) from a .pfx file to a <keychain> as an aggregated type in PKCS #12 format using the specified password and giving access to the 1E Client.

If you do not grant correct access to the client certificate’s private key, and the 1E Client debug logging is configured the log will show that it cannot obtain the client certificate’s private key because the user name or passphrase entered is not correct.

Reconfiguration

You will need to use the 1E.Client.updateconf.sh script if you want to reconfigure the client, or you installed 1E Client using installation options 2 or 3 above.

The pkg installation package for macOS includes a bash script called 1E.Client.updateconf.sh. The configuration properties for the Switch and Background Channel are mandatory, therefore assuming they are on the same Tachyon Server which has a DNS Name FQDN tachyon.acme.local then the post-installation command-line would be similar to the following but all on one command line. The second Switch and Background Channel can be removed if a DMZ server is not used. Single-quotes avoids escape characters and are necessary to allow use of the ; character.

sudo sh '/Library/Application Support/1E/Client/1E.Client.updateconf.sh' 
'/Library/Application Support/1E/Client/1E.Client.conf' 
SWITCH='tachyon.acme.local:4000;tachyon.acme.com:4000' 
BACKGROUNDCHANNELURL='https://tachyon.acme.local:443/Background/;https://tachyon.acme.com:443/Background/'

Please refer to 1E Client configuration settings and installer properties for a list of other configuration properties that can be appended to the above command-line. 

Starting the 1E Client

To load and start the 1E Client use the command:

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.1e.pkg.1E.Client.plist

If it is necessary to stop the 1E Client use the command:

sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.1e.pkg.1E.Client.plist

If the 1E Client should fail to start correctly please check:

• sudo launchctl list | grep -i 1e  to confirm the service is actually running. It should appear as com.1e.pkg.1E.Client
• /Library/Logs/1E.Client.Daemon.log shows any service start errors
• tail -f /Library/Logs/1E.Client.log shows the current operation of the 1E Client
• If necessary raise the  /Library/Application Support/1E/Client/1E.Client.conf  to  LoggingLevel=debug using a suitable text editor such as vi and then restart the 1E Client.

Uninstallation

To uninstall the 1E Client from a macOS device invoke the uninstall.sh script from within a sudo bash script. uninstall.sh is available within the scripts directory of the Apple Disk Image (dmg) file of the macOS 1E client.

Alternatively, enter the following commands inside a sudo bash shell:

bash$ cd /Library
bash$ pkgutil --only-files --files com.1e.pkg.1E.Client | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -n 1 -0 rm
bash$ pkgutil --forget com.1e.pkg.1E.Client