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Status Not under consideration
Workspace API Connect
Created by Guest
Created on Dec 1, 2025

RELATED IDEAS

TLS Client profile should support chain building only requiring root certificates as suggested by amazon's best practices

IBM API Connect currently requires both root and intermediate certificates to be included in the TLS client profile truststore for successful server validation. This approach conflicts with Amazon Web Services (AWS) best practices for ACM (AWS Certificate Manager) certificates, which strongly recommend not pinning intermediate or leaf-level certificates because ACM dynamically rotates these certificates—even before their expiration—to maintain security and compliance. Pinning intermediates can lead to unexpected service outages during certificate rotations. Instead, AWS advises trusting only Amazon’s root CAs from the Amazon Trust Services repository and avoiding intermediate pinning for long-term stability. As more enterprise systems migrate or are developed on AWS, IBM API Connect must support proper validation aligned with these guidelines to ensure high availability and prevent downtime. For reference, see AWS ACM Best Practices and Certificate Pinning Guidance. [docs.aws.amazon.com], [repost.aws]

Idea priority High
  • Admin
    AARON Lieber
    Mar 6, 2026

    This request is not aligned with our understanding of AWS best practices and how certificate validation works. AWS recommends against "certificate pinning," which their documentation defines as bypassing SSL/TLS certificate chain validation to trust a specific certificate directly. However, IBM API Connect does not perform certificate pinning—we perform PKIX certificate chain validation, which is the industry-standard secure approach.

    In a typical certificate chain, you have: Root CA → Intermediate CA → Leaf Certificate. To validate the leaf certificate, the system must verify that the intermediate certificate was signed by a trusted root AND that the leaf certificate was signed by that intermediate. If only the root certificate is in the truststore (as this request suggests), there is no way to validate that the intermediate certificate is legitimate, breaking the chain of trust and making proper security validation impossible.

    The correct way to handle AWS's frequent intermediate certificate rotations is to include both the old and new intermediate certificates in the truststore during transition periods. This allows the system to validate certificates signed by either intermediate while rotations occur, maintaining both security and availability. This is standard practice for certificate rotation and aligns with both TLS standards and AWS's actual security requirements.

    Implementing this request as described would fundamentally break certificate validation and create significant security vulnerabilities. IBM API Connect's current behavior is correct and follows established security standards.

    4 replies

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