Quickstart with Docker Compose¶

This guide provides instructions for running your own certificate authority using docker compose. This is the quickest and easiest way to run django-ca, especially if you do not care to much about custom configuration or extending django-ca.

This tutorial will give you a CA with

A root and intermediate CA.
A browsable admin interface, protected by TLS (using Let’s Encrypt certificates).
Certificate revocation using CRLs and OCSP.
(Optional) ACMEv2 support (= get certificates using certbot).

Requirements¶

This guide assumes that you have moderate knowledge of running servers, installing software and how TLS certificates work.

The guide assumes you use a dedicated server to set up your certificate authority and does not account for potential conflicts with other software like ports, directories or container names.

A certificate authority needs plain HTTP for CRL and OCSP access and HTTPS for ACMEv2. Using standard ports are strongly recommended (clients might fail otherwise). If you do not need any of the mentioned features, you can use all other features from the command line and do not need a web server.

Setup DNS¶

Before you set up your certificate authority, you need a domain name that points to the server where you install django-ca. Since the domain is encoded in CA certificates, it cannot be easily changed later.

This guide assumes that ca.example.com is the name that points to the server where you are setting up your certificate authority.

Required software¶

To run django-ca, you need Docker (at least version 19.03.0) and Docker Compose (at least version 1.27.0). You also need certbot to acquire Let’s Encrypt certificates for the admin interface. OpenSSL is used to generate the DH parameter file. On Debian/Ubuntu, simply do:

user@host:~$ sudo apt update
user@host:~$ sudo apt install docker.io docker-compose certbot openssl

For a different OS, please read Install Docker, Install docker compose and Get certbot.

If you want to run docker(-compose) as a regular user, you need to add your user to the docker group and log in again:

user@host:~$ sudo adduser `id -un` docker
user@host:~$ sudo su `id -un`

Get initial certificates¶

Use certbot to acquire initial certificates. This must be done before you run docker compose, as both bind to port 80 (HTTP).

user@host:~$ sudo certbot certonly --standalone -d ca.example.com
...
user@host:~$ sudo ls /etc/letsencrypt/live/ca.example.com
README  cert.pem  chain.pem  fullchain.pem  privkey.pem

Get configuration¶

Docker-compose needs a configuration file, docker-compose.yml. You can also download the file for other versions from github.

Note

Because of how Docker Compose works, it is better to put the file in a sub-directory and not directly into your home directory. We assume you put all files into ~/ca/ from now on.

You can also get versions for specific versions of django-ca from the table below, which also shows bundled third-party Docker images.

Warning

When updating, check if the PostgreSQL version has been updated. If yes, see PostgreSQL update for upgrade instructions.

Version	Redis	PostgreSQL	NGINX
1.28.0	7	16	1.24
1.27.0	7	12	1.24
1.26.0	7	12	1.24
1.25.0	7	12	1.24
1.24.0	7	12	1.23
1.23.0	7	12	1.23
1.22.0	7	12	1.20
1.21.0	6	12	1.20

Add `docker-compose.override.yml`¶

The default docker-compose.yml does not offer HTTPS, because too many details (cert location, etc.) are different from system to system. We need to add a docker-compose override file to open the port and map the directories with the certificates into the container. Simply add a file called docker-compose.override.yml next to your main configuration file:

docker-compose.override.yml¶

services:
    webserver:
        volumes:
            - /etc/letsencrypt/live/${DJANGO_CA_CA_DEFAULT_HOSTNAME}:/etc/certs/live/${DJANGO_CA_CA_DEFAULT_HOSTNAME}/
            - /etc/letsencrypt/archive/${DJANGO_CA_CA_DEFAULT_HOSTNAME}:/etc/certs/archive/${DJANGO_CA_CA_DEFAULT_HOSTNAME}/
            - ./dhparam.pem:/etc/nginx/dhparams/dhparam.pem
            - ./acme/:/usr/share/django-ca/acme/
        ports:
            - 443:443

This will work if you get your certificates using certbot or a similar client. If your private key in public key chain is named different, you can set NGINX_PRIVATE_KEY and NGINX_PUBLIC_KEY in your .env file below.

Add `.env` file¶

Some settings in django-ca can be configured with environment variables (except where a more complex structure is required). Simply create a file called .env next to docker-compose.yaml.

For a quick start, there are only a few variables you need to specify:

.env¶

# The hostname for your CA.
# WARNING: Changing this requires new CAs (because the hostname goes into the certificates).
DJANGO_CA_CA_DEFAULT_HOSTNAME=ca.example.com

# The URL base path used for ACMEv2/OCSP/CRL URLs. If given, the path **must** end with a slash.
#
# If you're upgrading from a previous version and have existing CAs, uncomment or set to "django_ca/".
#
# WARNING: Changing this requires new CAs (because the path goes into the certificates).
DJANGO_CA_CA_URL_PATH=

# PostgreSQL superuser password (required by the Docker image), see also:
#   https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres
#
# Generate a secure password e.g. with "openssl rand -base64 32"
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mysecretpassword

# NGINX TLS configuration
NGINX_TEMPLATE=tls
NGINX_PRIVATE_KEY=/etc/certs/live/ca.example.com/privkey.pem
NGINX_PUBLIC_KEY=/etc/certs/live/ca.example.com/fullchain.pem

Generate DH parameters¶

The TLS configuration also requires that you generate a DH parameter file, used by some TLS ciphers. You can generate it with:

user@host:~/ca/$ openssl dhparam -dsaparam -out dhparam.pem 4096

Customization¶

Although the defaults are fine for most scenarios, django-ca and Django itself support a wide range of settings to customize your installation. Django has its settings documented under Settings, django-ca settings are documented under custom settings.

Just like when using the plain Docker container, you can configure django-ca using either environment variables (set in e.g. docker-compose.override.yml) or using an extra YAML configuration file. For more details on how to configure the Docker container, refer to Initial configuration.

Note

In our docker compose setup, django-ca is used in both the backend and frontend containers. Make sure you configure both of them.

Configuration using a YAML configuration file¶

Using an extra configuration file is the most flexible way to configure django-ca, as it allows you to update even complex settings. It has the added advantage that docker compose will not recreate the containers if you update the configuration.

As with the normal docker container, django-ca will read configuration files in /usr/src/django-ca/ca/conf/ in alphabetical order, but it will also read files in the subfolder /usr/src/django-ca/conf/ca/compose/, which provides configuration specific to our docker compose setup.

To add a configuration file, first add a volume mapping in your docker-compose.override.yml:

docker-compose.override.yml¶

services:
  backend:
    volumes:
      - ./localsettings.yaml:/usr/src/django-ca/ca/conf/compose/99-localsettings.yaml
  frontend:
    volumes:
      - ./localsettings.yaml:/usr/src/django-ca/ca/conf/compose/99-localsettings.yaml
  webserver:
  # same as before...

… and then simply add a file called localsettings.yaml in your current directory, for example:

localsettings.yaml (example)¶

# (Example) Configure a custom SMTP server
#
# See also:
#		https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.0/topics/email/
SMTP_HOST: smtp.example.coma

# Set a custom default key size for new certificate authorities
CA_DEFAULT_KEY_SIZE: 2048

Please see Custom settings for a list of available settings and especially YAML configuration for more YAML configuration examples.

Configuration using environment variables¶

If you want to use environment variables for configuration, we recommend you first add them to your docker-compose.override.yml, for example to configure a different SMTP server for sending out emails:

docker-compose.override.yml¶

services:
  backend:
    environment:
      DJANGO_CA_EMAIL_HOST:
  frontend:
    environment:
      DJANGO_CA_EMAIL_HOST:
  webserver:
  # same as before...

and in your .env file, set the variable:

DJANGO_CA_EMAIL_HOST=smtp.example.com

Recap¶

By now, you should have at least four files in ~/ca/:

user@host:~/ca/$ ls -A
docker-compose.yml docker-compose.override.yml .env dhparam.pem

Start your CA¶

Now, you can start django-ca for the first time. Inside the folder with all your configuration, run docker compose (and verify that everything is running):

user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose up -d
...
Creating ca_backend_1  ... done
Creating ca_webserver_1 ... done
user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose ps
Name                       Command               State         Ports
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ca_backend_1     ./celery.sh -l info              Up
ca_cache_1       docker-entrypoint.sh redis ...   Up
ca_db_1          docker-entrypoint.sh postgres    Up
ca_frontend_1    /bin/sh -c ./uwsgi.sh            Up
ca_webserver_1   /docker-entrypoint.sh /bin ...   Up    0.0.0.0:443->443/tcp,...

By now, you should be able to see the admin interface (but not log in yet - you haven’t created a user yet). Simply go to https://ca.example.com/admin/.

Verify setup¶

You can run the deployment checks for your setup, which should not return any issues:

user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose exec backend manage check --deploy
System check identified no issues (4 silenced).
user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose exec frontend manage check --deploy
System check identified no issues (4 silenced).

Create admin user and set up CAs¶

Inside the backend container, manage is an alias for manage.py.

Custom management commands are documented in Command-line interface. You need to create a user (that can log into the admin interface) and create a root and intermediate CA:

user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose exec backend manage createsuperuser
user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose exec backend manage init_ca --path-length=1 \
>    --subject-format=rfc4514 Root CN=Root
user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose exec backend manage init_ca \
>    --path=ca/shared/ --parent=Root --subject-format=rfc4514 Intermediate \
>    CN=Intermediate

There are a few things to break down in the above commands:

The subject (CN=...) in the CA is only used by browsers to display the name of a CA. It can be any human readable value and does not have to be a domain name.
The first positional argument to init_ca, (“Root”, “Intermediate”) is just a human readable name used to identify the CA within the command-line interface and web interface. Unlike the CommonName, it must be unique.
The --path=ca/shared/ parameter for the intermediate CA means that you can use the admin interface to issue certificates. Without it, the web server has no access to the private key for your CA.
The --pathlen=1 parameter for the root CA means that there is at most one level of intermediate CAs.

Use your CAs¶

After adding your Root CA to your system, you can use the admin interface at https://ca.example.com/admin/ with the credentials you created above to create new certificates or revoke certificates. You cannot issue certificates with the “Root” CA, since you did not pass --path=ca/shared/ when creating it.

CRL and OCSP services are provided by default, so there is nothing you need to do to enable them.

You can use the Command-line interface for creating new CAs as well as issuing, renewing and revoking certificates. The manage.py script can be invoked via docker compose exec backend manage, for example:

user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose exec backend manage list_cas
<serial> - Intermediate
<serial> - Root

To sign a certificate from the command line, simply invoke the sign_cert command.

user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose exec backend manage sign_cert \
>    --ca=Intermediate --subject-format=rfc4514 --subject="CN=example.com"
Please paste the CSR:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
...

To pass data from stdin, for example to sign a certificate non-interactively by passing the CSR from stdin, you need to pass the -T parameter to docker-compose exec:

user@host:~/ca/$ openssl genrsa -out example.com.key 4096
Generating RSA private key, ...
user@host:~/ca/$ openssl req -new -key example.com.key -out example.com.csr \
>    -utf8 -batch -subj /CN=example.com
user@host:~/ca/$ cat example.com.csr | docker compose exec -T backend \
>    manage sign_cert --ca=Intermediate --subject-format=rfc4514 \
>    --subject="CN=example.com"

Add CA to your system¶

To get the certificate for your Root CA, you can use the admin interface or the dump_ca command:

user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose exec backend manage dump_ca Root > root.pem

You can add this file directly to the list of known CAs in your browser.

Distributions usually provide instructions for how to add a CA to the whole system, see for example these instructions for Debian/Ubuntu.

Use ACME with certbot¶

If you enabled ACMEv2 support, all you need to do is enable ACMEv2 for the intermediate CA using the admin interface (or using docker compose exec backend manage edit_ca). After that, you can retrieve a certificate using a simple certbot command:

$ sudo certbot register --server https://ca.example.com/acme/directory/
$ sudo certbot certonly --server https://ca.example.com/acme/directory/ ...

Backup¶

To backup your data, you need to store the PostgreSQL database and the private key files for your certificate authorities.

If possible for you, you can first stop the frontend and backend containers to make absolutely sure that you have a consistent backup:

user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose stop frontend
user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose stop backend

Create a database backup:

user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose exec db pg_dump -U postgres postgres > db.backup.sql

Backing up Docker volumes is not as straight forward as maybe it should be, please see the official documentation for more information.

You should always backup /var/lib/django-ca/certs/ from both the backend and the frontend container.

Here is an example that should work for the backend container.:

user@host:~/ca/$ docker run -it --rm --volumes-from `basename $PWD`_backend_1 \
>     -v `pwd`:/backup ubuntu tar czf /backup/backend.tar.gz /var/lib/django-ca/certs/
user@host:~/ca/$ tar tf backend.tar.gz
var/lib/django-ca/certs/
var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/
var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/1BBB69C1D3B64AB5EF39C2946015F57A0FB04107.key
var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/
var/lib/django-ca/certs/ca/shared/secret_key
...

Update¶

When updating, first check the ChangeLog for any breaking changes. Under Update you’ll also find notes on any manual steps you might need to take.

Warning

Updating from django-ca 1.28.0 or earlier? Please see PostgreSQL update.
Updating from django-ca 1.18.0 or earlier? Please see Update from 1.18 or earlier.

Remember to backup your data before you perform any update.

In general, updating django-ca is done by getting the latest version of docker-compose.yml and then simply recreating the containers:

user@host:~/ca/$ curl -O https://.../docker-compose.yml
user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose up -d

PostgreSQL update¶

When a new version docker-compose.yml includes a new version of PostgreSQL, you have to take some extra steps to migrate the PostgreSQL database.

Before you upgrade, back up your PostgreSQL database as usual:

user@host:~/ca/$ docker-compose down
user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose up -d db
user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose exec db pg_dump -U postgres -d postgres > backup.sql

Now update docker-compose.yml but then only start the database:

user@host:~/ca/$ curl -O https://.../docker-compose.yml
user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose up -d db

Once the database is started, update the database with data from your backup and normally start your setup:

user@host:~/ca/$ cat backup.sql | docker compose exec -T db psql -U postgres -d postgres
user@host:~/ca/$ docker compose up -d

Forgot to backup?¶

If you forgot to backup your database and started the update already, don’t panic. Whenever we update the PostgreSQL version, we use a a new Docker volume. You should be able to reset docker-compose.yml and then proceed to do the backup normally.

Quickstart with Docker Compose¶

Requirements¶

Setup DNS¶

Required software¶

Get initial certificates¶

Get configuration¶

Add docker-compose.override.yml¶

Add .env file¶

Generate DH parameters¶

Customization¶

Configuration using a YAML configuration file¶

Configuration using environment variables¶

Recap¶

Start your CA¶

Verify setup¶

Create admin user and set up CAs¶

Use your CAs¶

Add CA to your system¶

Use ACME with certbot¶

Backup¶

Update¶

PostgreSQL update¶

Forgot to backup?¶

Add `docker-compose.override.yml`¶

Add `.env` file¶