[clue-admin] Cert for TLS.

[David L. Anselmi]

Jeff Cann wrote:
[...]
> I'm not sure if we need a valid cert,   It's funny to me that Dave 
> suggested it because a few years ago, when I last suggested it, it was 
> *Dave* who thought it wasn't necessary.  :)  Too bad we lost the 
> archives as evidence.  Dang it!

Well, you might be right.  I would guess that I argued against buying a 
cert rather than signing our own.

By valid I mean a server cert with a CN that matches our server's name. 
  Not necessarily one that is signed by someone most browsers "trust".

We don't need a valid cert, just one that is unique.  That's the way SSH 
does it (actually SSH uses public keys, not certs).  But SSH is built to 
verify the server's key hasn't changed from what you accepted.  With an 
incorrect CN, web browsers will complain and they don't make it as easy 
to verify the key as SSH does.

At the moment I don't care that much which path we take (even leaving 
the bogus cert in place).  But I'd like us to understand the rationale 
for the decision.  Unless we have someone who wants to learn to manage 
out PKI, buying a cert may be worth the price in reduced effort.  But 
that gives us less flexibility to manage the CA in a way that is 
reliable in the face of volunteer officers becoming unavailable.

Dave