Renewing certificates on windows installation

[Peter Schober]

Andi,

Sadly none of your questions are really specific for this list.
I'll add a few generic comments below but generally this is not the
best place to ask, even if you intend to run the Shibboleth software
somewhere in your stack.

* Morris, Andi <amorris at cardiffmet.ac.uk> [2013-03-01 12:52]:
> My idp certificates are coming up for a renewal in the next month
> and I have a few questions regarding how to go about this if anyone
> can point me in the right direction? I also have a question
> regarding updating components on the IDP server.

Note that use of TLS/SSL certificates with the Apache httpd (if you're
using that; not clear from what you wrote) or the Apache Tomcat
webserver each have their own place and documentetion elsewhere:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/en/ssl/

http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/ssl-howto.html
or
http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/apr.html#HTTPS
if you're using "Apache Portable Runtime (APR) based Native library
for Tomcat", which can use base6-encoded .pem files for TLS/SSL.

> 1 - My installation is a Windows based one, but the installed
> certificates are Apache based. Do I just use a linux server
> somewhere to generate the new certificate request file and then
> export the corresponding private key from that once the request has
> been completed, or is there a way to generate apache cert requests
> from within the Windows install?

First and formost you should clearly state what software or server
process is handling TLS/SSL. The OS is some form of MS-Windows, OK.
What is the webserver used? Apache httpd? Apache Tomcat solo? Your ISA
applicance, as stated below?

> 2- I publish the idp server through an ISA server, which requires
> IIS style certificates. Can I just use IIS certificates with the
> same friendly name on the ISA server and point them to port 443 on
> the idp server?

I couldn't say. Whatever process or appliance handles end users' HTTPS
traffic should have a valid certificate (and even that isn't a
requirement from the Shibboleth software, only from common sense).
How that gets there and which tools you use to generate it and put it
there is completely up to you (and your setup unknown to me).

> 3 - With the recent concern regarding Java I'm concerned about
> leaving my Java install unpatched, however whenever I run the
> upgrade on the java software my IDP server won't start (from memory
> it's the tomcat service that won't start). I've looked inside the
> various Tomcat configs but I can't see anything that seems to tie it
> to an exact version number, do I need to do something funky inside
> to Tomcat to get it to recognise the updated java install? The paths
> declared in the Environment variables remains the same.

This list also is not the best list for generic Java & Tomcat
questions.
Also none of what you say is nearly specific enough for any concrete
advise. When Tomcat does not start there's a log file detailing the
reason. Tomcat comes with wrapper scripts that point at a JVM (but how
Tomcat is started in your environment i have no idea). If you want
Tomcat to use another JVM you'll probably need to tell it somewhere.

Sorry,
-peter