AutoSSL-enabled product components

A vendor cab easily enable a home-based Web server product to use AutoSSL for security, using the following components:

  • Control Program: The software written by the vendor that controls the software or hardware product. This is the device's firmware.
  • AutoSSL Agent: A small library developed and licensed by Sericon Technology that the vendor embeds in the product to enable it to work with AutoSSL. It interacts with the AutoSSL Server, located somewhere on the Internet, to provision an SSL certificate.
  • Web Server: The vendor embeds a Web Server in the product to enable a browser or other client to access data or control the device. The Web Server may be a component such as Apache HTTP Server, thttpd, or one of the other many Web Server solutions available that are suitable for embedding into a hardware device.

This diagram illustrates the interaction between these components in an AutoSSL-enabled product:

An AutoSSL-Enabled product

  1. Upon initialization, the Control Program contacts the AutoSSL Agent to start the process of SSL certificate provisioning. The Control Program provides the AutoSSL Agent with the following information:
    • customer identification information that will be written into the certificate
    • any authentication information that the AutoSSL Server requires to verify that the request is genuine

    The capabilities of the product determine how the Control Program obtains this information: Products with user interfaces can prompt the user for this information, while simple devices without any controls may gather this information in a different way, such as from a vendor-controlled server on the Internet.

  2. The AutoSSL Agent creates an SSL certificate and sends it, along with other required information, to the AutoSSL Server for processing.
  3. The AutoSSL Server validates the request, signs the SSL certificate (or passes it along to a Certificate Authority for signing), and returns the signed certificate to the AutoSSL Agent.
  4. The AutoSSL Agent enables the Control Program to install the signed certificate into the Web Server. The Web Server design determines how this happens, although it probably includes copying and updating files.
  5. Users can use a browser or another client to securely interact with the product via its embedded Web Server.