Import Private Keys and CA-Signed SSL Certificates to the VMware Cloud Director Appliance

If you have your own private key and CA-signed certificate files, importing them into your VMware Cloud Director environment provides the highest level of trust for SSL communications and helps you secure the connections within your cloud infrastructure.

Prerequisites

Copy your intermediate certificates, root CA certificate, CA-signed HTTPS service, and Console Proxy service private keys and certificates to the appliance.

Procedure

Log in directly or by using an SSH client to the VMware Cloud Director appliance console as root.
Make a note of the existing http and consoleproxy certificate file paths from /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/global.properties using the properties of user.http.pem, user.http.key, user.consoleproxy.pem, and user.consoleproxy.key.

To back up the existing certificate files, use the paths from step 2 to run the following commands.

cp path_to_the_user.http.pem /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.http.pem.original
cp path_to_the_user.http.key /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.http.key.original
cp path_to_the_user.consoleproxy.pem /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.consoleproxy.pem.original
cp path_to_the_user.consoleproxy.key /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.consoleproxy.key.original

Copy and replace the key and certificate files that you must import at /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.http.pem, /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.http.key, /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.consoleproxy.pem, and /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.consoleproxy.key.
If you have intermediate certificates, to append the root CA-signed certificate and any intermediate certificates to the HTTP and console proxy certificates, run the following command.
```
cat intermediate-certificate-file-1.cer intermediate-certificate-file-2.cer root-CA-certificate.cer >> /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.http.pem

cat intermediate-certificate-file-1.cer intermediate-certificate-file-2.cer root-CA-certificate.cer >> /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.consoleproxy.pem
```
Where intermediate-certificate-file-1.cer and intermediate-certificate-file-2.cer are the names of intermediate certificates and root-CA-certificate.cer is the name of the root CA-signed certificate.

Run the command to import the signed certificates into the VMware Cloud Director instance.

/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool certificates -j --cert /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.http.pem --key /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.http.key --key-password imported_key_password
/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool certificates -p --cert /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.consoleproxy.pem --key /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/user.consoleproxy.key --key-password imported_key_password

For the CA-signed certificates to take effect, restart the vmware-vcd service on the VMware Cloud Director appliance.
1. Run the command to stop the service.
```
/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool cell -i $(service vmware-vcd pid cell) -s
```
2. Run the command to start the service.
```
systemctl start vmware-vcd
```

What to do next

If you are using wildcard certificates, see Deploy the VMware Cloud Director Appliance with Signed Wildcard Certificates for HTTPS and Console Proxy Communication.
If you are not using wildcard certificates, repeat this procedure on all VMware Cloud Director appliance cells in the server group.
For more information on replacing the certificates for the embedded PostgreSQL database and for the VMware Cloud Director appliance management user interface, see Replace a Self-Signed Embedded PostgreSQL and VMware Cloud Director Appliance Management UI Certificate.