Provisioning a network appliance

• US 20090138947A1
• Filed: 11/27/2007
• Published: 05/28/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Schneider, James P., Riemers, Bill C.
• Granted Patent: US 8,191,123 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/33 using certificates

Abstract

A method and system for generating identity certificates. The method may include receiving a user login at a network appliance, determining that the network appliance is not initialized, and generating a provisionally unique identifier from the network appliance for identifying the network appliance. The method may include generating a certificate signing request (CSR) and sending the CSR, the provisionally unique identifier, and information about the user login to a service provider. Upon receiving a signed certificate from the service provider at the network appliance, the network appliance is initialized using the received signed certificate.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:

receiving a user login at a network appliance;

determining that the network appliance is not initialized;

generating a provisionally unique identifier from the network appliance for identifying the network appliance

generating a certificate signing request (CSR);

sending the CSR, the provisionally unique identifier, and information about the user login to a service provider;

receiving a signed certificate from the service provider at the network appliance; and

initializing the network appliance using the received signed certificate.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user login comprises a user name.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the provisionally unique identifier is not known beforehand by the network appliance.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the determination that the network appliance is not initialized is made by evaluating whether the network appliance has a signed certificate.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the provisionally unique identifier is generated using a location of the network appliance, the location including an IP address.

6. A computer implemented method, comprising:

determining whether a network appliance comprises a signed certificate from a service provider;

if the network appliance does not have a signed certificate, generating a certificate signing request (CSR) at the network appliance that includes a provisionally unique identifier for identifying the network appliance;

sending the CSR and the provisionally unique identifier to a service provider to determine whether the network appliance is to be activated; and

in response to receiving a signed certificate, initializing the network appliance in response to the CSR.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the CSR comprises user credentials of a user who has logged into the network appliance.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising sending a notification message to the user that the network appliance has been activated.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the signed certificate has been evaluated to determine whether the provisionally unique identifier is unique to the service provider, and in response, the CSR is granted and the signed certificate is signed.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the CSR includes time sensitive information about the network appliance, configuration information, or credential information for the network appliance.

11. A machine-accessible medium including instructions that, when executed by a first machine, cause the first machine to perform a computer implemented method comprising:

determining that the network appliance is not initialized;

generating a provisionally unique identifier from the network appliance for identifying the network appliance generating a certificate signing request (CSR);

sending the CSR and the provisionally unique identifier to a service provider;

receiving a signed certificate from the service provider at the network appliance; and

initializing the network appliance using the received signed certificate.

12. The machine-accessible medium of claim 11, further comprising receiving credential information of a user logged into the network appliance.

13. The machine-accessible medium of claim 11, wherein the provisionally unique identifier is not known beforehand by the network appliance implementing the method.

14. The machine-accessible medium of claim 11, wherein the certificate signing request has been automatically generated by the network appliance upon a user logging into the network appliance.

15. The machine-accessible medium of claim 11, further including instructions that, when executed by a second machine, cause the second machine to perform a computer implemented method comprising:

evaluate the provisionally unique identifier to determine whether the provisionally unique identifier is unique; and

if not,

sending a request to the network appliance to generate another provisionally unique identifier.

16. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, the method further comprising:

signing the signed certificate in response to validating credential information of a user logged in at the network appliance.

17. A computing system, comprising:

a network appliance, to receive a user login, to determine whether a signed certificate exists on the network appliance, and if not, to generate a provisionally unique identifier of the network appliance to be transmitted to a service provider; and

the service provider networked with the network appliance, to receive a certificate signing request (CSR) from the network appliance, the certificate signing request including the provisionally unique identifier, and to sign a certificate for the network appliance if login credentials from the user login are recognized.

18. The computing system of claim 17, wherein the certificate is signed if the provisionally unique identifier is found to be unique by the service provider.

19. The computing system of claim 17, further comprising:

a client networked with the network appliance to permit a user to login to the network appliance.

20. The computing system of claim 17, wherein the provisionally unique identifier is not known beforehand by the service provider.