Red Hat Certificate System was acquired from AOL three years ago as part of the Netscape technology acquisition. In keeping with our commitment to open source software, today Red Hat has released all of the source code to Red Hat Certificate System. Much of the technology in Red Hat Certificate System was already open source, including the Apache web server, Red Hat Directory Server and the FIPS140-2 level 2 validated NSS cryptographic libraries, but today’s move further demonstrates Red Hat’s belief that the open source development model creates more secure software.

With the Certificate System code now available under an open source license, it will be much easier to integrate these proven technologies with other open source projects. One specific example of this is the Red Hat-sponsored freeIPA project. freeIPA provides central management of (I)dentity, (P)olicy and (A)udit for the Unix and Linux world through the use of open source and open standards. By incorporating technology from Certificate System, the freeIPA project will, over time, be able to centrally manage machine and service digital certificates including provisioning those certificates to the machine when it joins the IPA realm and renewing them upon expiration. This will enhance enterprise security by streamlining the use of certificates within the environment.

For more information on the above-mentioned technologies, or if you would like to take part and join the open source communities working on these projects, please visit:

• http://pki-svn.fedora.redhat.com/wiki/PKI_Main_Page
• http://www.freeipa.org