Oracle Advanced Security Administrator's Guide
Release 8.1.7
Part Number A85430-01

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18
Using Oracle Wallet Manager

Security administrators use Oracle Wallet Manager to manage public-key security credentials on Oracle clients and servers. The wallets it creates are opened by using either the Oracle Enterprise Login Assistant or the Oracle Wallet Manager.

This chapter describes the Oracle Wallet Manager, in the following sections:

Overview

Traditional private-key or symmetric-key cryptography requires that entities desiring to establish secure communications possess a single secret key known only to them. Harriet and Dick, for example, could agree to shift each letter in their private messages by two character positions (A becomes C, B becomes E, and so on) to encrypt the message text. Using this method, a HELLO message from Harriet to Dick would read JGNNP. The actual encryption methods in current use are much more complex and significantly more secure, but an underlying problem remains--sending messages encrypted with a single key requires prior, secure distribution of the key to each participating party. Otherwise, a malicious third party might obtain the key, intercept communications, and compromise security. Public-key cryptography addresses this problem, by providing a secure method for key distribution.

Public-key cryptography requires a party to possess a public/private key pair. The private key is kept secret and is known only to that party. The public key, as the name implies, is freely available. To send a secret message to this party requires that a third party sender encrypt the message with the public key. Such a message can only be decrypted by a party holding the associated private key.

For example, when Dick wants to send a secure message to Harriet, he first asks Harriet for her public key (or obtains it from another, public source). Harriet gives Dick the public key, but Tom, a malicious eavesdropper, also obtains the public key. Nevertheless, when Dick sends Harriet a message encrypted with her public key, Tom cannot decrypt it; the message can only be decrypted with Harriet's private key.

Public-key algorithms thus guarantee the secrecy of a message, but they don't guarantee secure communications because they don't verify the identities of the communicating parties. In order to establish secure communications, it is important to verify that the public key used to encrypt a message does in fact belong to the target recipient. Otherwise, a third party can potentially eavesdrop on the communication and intercept public key requests, substituting its public key for a legitimate key.

If Tom, for example, is able to substitute his public key for Harriet's public key and send it to Dick, Dick might then send a message to Harriet encrypted with Tom's public key--believing he was using Harriet's public key. Tom could then decrypt a subsequent intercepted message from Dick using his private key, re-encrypt it with Harriet's public key and re-transmit it to Harriet. Harriet could then decrypt the incoming message using her private key, and never know that it had been intercepted by Tom--the man-in-the-middle.

In order to avoid such a man-in-the-middle attack, it is necessary to verify the owner of the public key, a process called authentication. This authentication can be accomplished through a certificate authority (CA).

A CA is a third party that is trusted by both of the parties attempting secure communication. The CA issues public key certificates that contain an entity's name, public key, and certain other security credentials. Such credentials typically include the CA name, the CA signature, and the certificate effective dates (From Date, To Date).

The CA uses its private key to encrypt a message, while the public key is used to decrypt it, thus verifying that the message was encrypted by the CA. The CA public key is well known, and does not have to be authenticated each time it is accessed. Such CA public keys are stored in an Oracle wallet.

Oracle Wallet Manager is a stand-alone Java application that wallet owners use to manage and edit the security credentials in their Oracle wallets. These tasks include the following:

Managing Wallets

This section describes how to create a new wallet and perform associated wallet management tasks, such as generating certificate requests, exporting certificate requests, and importing certificates into wallets, in the following subsections:

Starting Oracle Wallet Manager

To start Oracle Wallet Manager:

Creating a New Wallet

Create a new wallet as follows:

  1. Choose Wallet > New from the menu bar; the New Wallet dialog box appears.

  2. Read the recommended guidelines for creating a password and enter a password in the Wallet Password field.

    Because an Oracle wallet contains a user's credentials that can be used to authenticate the user to multiple databases, it is especially important to choose a strong password for the wallet. A malicious user who guesses the password to a user's wallet can access all the databases that the user can access.

    Oracle Corporation recommends that you choose a password that is not too short, not easily guessed, and is reasonably complex. A reasonably complex password has at least six characters, and contains at least one symbol or number--so that it will not be found in a dictionary.

    Example: gol8fer

    It is also a prudent security practice for users to change their passwords periodically, such as once a month, or once a quarter.

  3. Re-enter that password in the Confirm Password field.

  4. Choose OK to continue.

  5. An Alert is displayed, and informs you that a new empty wallet has been created. It prompts you to decide whether you want to create a certificate request. See: Creating a Certificate Request.

    If you choose Cancel, you are returned to the Oracle Wallet Manager main window. The new wallet you just created appears in the left window pane. The certificate has a status of Empty, and the wallet displays its default trusted certificates.

  6. Select Wallet > Save In System Default to save the new wallet.

    If you do not have permission to save the wallet in the system default, you can save it to another location.

    A message at the bottom of the window informs you that the wallet was successfully saved.

Opening an Existing Wallet

Open a wallet that already exists in the file system directory as follows:

    1. Choose Wallet > Open from the menu bar; the Select Directory dialog box appears.

    2. Navigate to the directory location in which the wallet is located, and select the directory.

    3. Choose OK; the Open Wallet dialog box appears.

    4. Enter the wallet password in the Wallet Password field.

    5. Choose OK.

    6. The message Wallet opened successfully appears at the bottom of the window, and you are returned to the Oracle Wallet Manager main window. The wallet's certificate and its trusted certificates are displayed in the left window pane.

Closing a Wallet

To close an open wallet in the currently selected directory:

Saving Changes

To save your changes to the current open wallet:

Saving the Open Wallet to a New Location

Use the Save As option to save the current open wallet to a new directory location:

    1. Choose Wallet > Save As; the select directory dialog box appears.

    2. Select a directory location to save the wallet.

    3. Choose OK.

      The following message appears if a wallet already exists in the selected directory:

      A wallet already exists in the selected path. Do you want to overwrite it?.

      Choose Yes to overwrite the existing wallet, or No to save the wallet to another directory.

      A message at the bottom of the window confirms that the wallet was successfully saved to the selected directory location.

Saving in System Default

Use the Save in System Default menu option to save the current open wallet to the system default directory location. This makes the current open wallet the wallet that is used by SSL:

Deleting the Wallet

To delete the current open wallet:

    1. Choose Wallet > Delete; the Delete Wallet dialog box appears.

    2. Review the displayed wallet location to verify you are deleting the correct wallet.

    3. Enter the wallet password.

    4. Choose OK; a dialog panel appears to inform you that the wallet was successfully deleted.

      Note:

      Any open wallet in application memory will remain in memory until the application exits. Therefore, deleting a wallet that is currently in use does not immediately affect system operation. 

Changing the Password

A password change is effective immediately. The wallet is saved to the currently selected directory, with the new encrypted password.To change the password for the current open wallet:

    1. Choose Wallet > Change Password; the Change Wallet Password dialog box appears.

    2. Enter the existing wallet password.

    3. Enter the new password.

    4. Re-enter the new password.

    5. Choose OK.

    A message at the bottom of the window confirms that the password was successfully changed.

Using Auto Login

The Oracle Wallet Manager Auto Login feature opens a copy of the wallet and enables PKI-based access to secure services--as long as the wallet in the specified directory remains open in memory.

You must enable Auto Login if you want single sign-on access to multiple Oracle databases.

Enabling Auto Login

To enable Auto Login:

    1. Choose Wallet from the menu bar.

    2. Choose the check box next to the Auto Login menu item; a message at the bottom of the window displays Autologin enabled.

Disabling Auto Login

To disable Auto Login:

    1. Choose Wallet from the menu bar.

    2. Choose the check box next to the Auto Login menu item; a message at the bottom of the window displays Autologin disabled.

Using Oracle Wallet Manager with Oracle Application Server

When using the Oracle Application Server (OAS), you must install the Oracle Wallet Manager on a primary node and on each remote node in a multi-node configuration. After you install the product on each node you must then copy the wallet from the primary node to each of the remote nodes.

Managing Certificates

Oracle Wallet Manager uses two kinds of certificates: user certificates and trusted certificates. This section describes how to manage both certificate types, in the following subsections:

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