Inhaltsverzeichnis

Operator Scenarios

Target Audience: System administrators, PKI operators, DevOps
Focus: Daily operations, runbooks, checklists, automation

Practice-oriented guides for the operational management of a PQ-capable PKI.

Overview

flowchart TB subgraph DAILY["📋 DAILY OPERATIONS"] D1[Issue certificate] D2[Renew certificate] D3[Revoke certificate] D4[Health Check] end subgraph AUTO["⚙️ AUTOMATION"] A1[ACME/Let's Encrypt] A2[CI/CD Signing] A3[Kubernetes Cert-Manager] A4[Scheduled Renewal] end subgraph MON["📊 MONITORING"] M1[Expiration monitoring] M2[Revocation check] M3[Audit logging] M4[Alerting] end subgraph MIG["🔄 MIGRATION"] G1[Classic → Hybrid] G2[Parallel operation] G3[Rollback] G4[Inventory] end subgraph DR["🛡️ DISASTER RECOVERY"] R1[CA Backup/Restore] R2[Key Ceremony] R3[Emergency revocation] end subgraph CLOUD["☁️ CLOUD"] C1[Azure Key Vault] C2[AWS KMS] C3[HashiCorp Vault] end DAILY --> AUTO AUTO --> MON MON --> MIG MIG --> DR style D1 fill:#e8f5e9 style A1 fill:#fff3e0 style M1 fill:#e3f2fd style G1 fill:#fce4ec

Categories

Daily Operations

Runbooks for daily operational tasks.

Runbook Description Duration
Issue certificate Review CSR, sign, deliver ~10 min
Renew certificate Renew expiring certificates ~15 min
Revoke certificate Revoke compromised certificates ~5 min
Health Check Daily system check ~5 min

Automation

Priority 1 – Reduces manual work and errors

Scenario Description Complexity
ACME Integration Let's Encrypt / ACME protocol Medium
CI/CD Code Signing Automatic signing in pipelines High
Kubernetes Cert-Manager Certificates in K8s High
Scheduled Renewal Automatic renewal Low

Monitoring & Alerting

Priority 2 – Critical for production operations

Scenario Description Tools
Expiration Monitoring Monitor certificate expiration Prometheus, Grafana
Revocation Check CRL/OCSP availability curl, PowerShell
Audit Logging Compliance-compliant logging Syslog, ELK
Alerting Setup Configure notifications PagerDuty, Teams

Migration

Priority 3 – For existing PKI infrastructures

Scenario Description Risk
Classic → Hybrid Migrate RSA/ECDSA to Hybrid Medium
Parallel Operation Classic + PQ simultaneously Low
Rollback Strategy Plan emergency fallback -
Certificate Inventory Stock taking Low

Disaster Recovery

Scenario Description Critical
CA Backup/Restore Backup and restore CA keys Yes
Key Ceremony Secure key generation Yes
Emergency Revocation Mass revocation Yes

Cloud Integration

Scenario Cloud HSM
Azure Key Vault Azure Managed HSM
AWS KMS AWS CloudHSM
HashiCorp Vault Multi-Cloud Transit

Quick Start for Operators

Day 1: Basics

  1. Perform Health Check
  2. Issue first certificate

Week 1: Automation

  1. Set up automatic renewal
  2. Configure expiration monitoring

Month 1: Production

  1. Set up alerting
  2. Implement backup strategy

Wolfgang van der Stille @ EMSR DATA d.o.o. - Post-Quantum Cryptography Professional

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