About security certificates for NetBackup hosts

NetBackup uses security certificates for authentication of NetBackup hosts. The NetBackup security certificates conform to the X.509 Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) standard. A primary server acts as the NetBackup Certificate Authority (CA) and issues NetBackup certificates to hosts.

NetBackup provides two types of NetBackup host security certificates: Host ID-based certificates and host name-based certificates. Host ID-based certificates are based on Universally Unique Identifiers (UUID) that are assigned to each NetBackup host. The NetBackup primary server assigns these identifiers to the hosts.

Any security certificates that were generated before NetBackup 8.0 are now referred to as host name-based certificates. NetBackup is in the process of replacing these older certificates with newer host ID-based certificates. The transition will be completed in future releases and the use of host name-based certificates will be eliminated. However, the transition is ongoing and the current NetBackup version continues to require the older host name-based certificates for certain operations.

NetBackup uses the certificates that are issued from either a NetBackup Certificate Authority or an external certificate authority for host authentication. If you intend to use external certificates on your primary server, you configure the certificates in a post-installation process. The media servers and the clients that use external certificates can either configure external certificates during the installation or upgrade, or after the installation or upgrade.

More information about the post-installation process is available: https://support.cohesity.com/article.100044300

For information on external CA support in NetBackup and external CA-signed certificates, see the NetBackup Security and Encryption Guide.