Enroll a certificate for yourself. This can be done, for example, with the ssh-cmpclient-g3 or ssh-scepclient-g3 command-line tools.

Example: Key generation and enrollment using ssh-cmpclient-g3

$ ssh-cmpclient-g3 INITIALIZE 
-P generate://ssh2:passphrase@rsa:1536/user_rsa \  
-o /home/user/.ssh2/user_rsa -p 62154:ssh \
-s 'C=FI,O=SSH,CN=user;email=user@example.org' \
-S http://fw.example.com:1080 http://pki.example.com:8080/pkix/ \
'C=FI, O=SSH, CN=Test CA 1'

For more information on ssh-cmpclient-g3 and ssh-scepclient-g3, see ssh-cmpclient-g3(1) and ssh-scepclient-g3(1).

Place your keys and certificates in a directory where the Connection Broker can locate them.

By default, the Connection Broker attempts to use each key found in the $HOME/.ssh2 directory on Unix, or in the %APPDATA%\SSH\UserKeys and %APPDATA%\SSH\UserCertificates directories on Windows.

You can also add other directory locations for keys on the Keys and Certificates page of the Tectia Configuration tool. See Managing Keys and Certificates. On Unix, you can use the general/key-stores/key-store element in the ssh-broker-config.xml file. See the section called “Key Store Configuration Examples”.

(Optional) Create an identification file.

Using the identification file is not necessary if all your keys are stored in the default directory and you allow all of them to be used for public-key and/or certificate authentication. If the identification file does not exist, the Connection Broker attempts to use each key found in the default directory. If the identification file exists, the keys listed in it are attempted first.

Specify the private key of your software certificate in the $HOME/.ssh2/identification file (the CertKey option works identically with the IdKey option):

CertKey     user_rsa

The certificate itself will be read from user_rsa.crt.

For more information on the syntax of the identification file, see $HOME/.ssh2/identification.

Make sure that public-key authentication is enabled in the ssh-broker-config.xml file (it is enabled by default).

<authentication-methods>
  <auth-publickey />
...
</authentication-methods>

Other authentication methods can be listed in the configuration file as well. Place the least interactive method first.