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Update CA provider docs
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Clarify that providers can differ between
primary and secondary datacenters

Provide a comparison chart for consul vs
vault CA providers
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Chris S. Kim committed Jun 21, 2023
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Showing 1 changed file with 17 additions and 4 deletions.
21 changes: 17 additions & 4 deletions website/content/docs/connect/ca/index.mdx
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Expand Up @@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ support for using
[Vault as a CA](/consul/docs/connect/ca/vault). With Vault, the root certificate
and private key material remain with the Vault cluster.

### CA and Certificate relationship
## CA and Certificate relationship

This diagram shows the relationship between the CA certificates in a Consul primary datacenter and a
secondary Consul datacenter.
Expand All @@ -34,9 +34,22 @@ services.
- the Leaf Cert Client Agent is created by auto-encrypt and auto-config. It is used by
client agents for HTTP API TLS, and for mTLS for RPC requests to servers.

Any secondary datacenters receive an intermediate certificate, signed by the Primary Root
CA, which is used as the CA certificate to sign leaf certificates in the secondary
datacenter.
Any secondary datacenters use their CA provider to generate an intermediate certificate
signing request (CSR) to be signed by the Primary Root CA. They receive an intermediate
CA certificate which is used to sign leaf certificates in the secondary datacenter.

It is possible to use different providers across primary and secondary datacenters.
For example, an operator may use a Vault CA provider for extra security in the primary
datacenter but choose to use the built-in CA provider in the secondary datacenter which
may not have a reachable Vault cluster. The pros and cons of both providers are listed below.

## CA Provider Comparison

| | Consul built-in | Vault |
|------------|------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Security | CA private keys are stored on disk | CA private keys are stored in Vault and are never exposed to Consul server agents |
| Resiliency | No dependency on external systems; if Consul is available, it can sign certs | Dependent on Vault availability |
| Latency | Certs are signed locally | Cert signing operations require a network call to Vault |

## CA Bootstrapping

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