Back

Certificates

Batteries Included provides comprehensive certificate management via three batteries:

  • Cert Manager: Automates X.509 certificate management and issuance.
  • Battery CA: Acts as the Certificate Authority for your installation.
  • Trust Manager: Manages TLS trust bundles across your cluster.

SSL/TLS certificates secure internet traffic by encrypting data and verifying website authenticity. Batteries Included automates the entire process by integrating cert-manager, Let’s Encrypt, Istio, and Knative to handle certificate issuance, renewal, and SSL configuration across all services.

When deployed on public-facing infrastructure (like AWS or other cloud providers), Batteries Included automatically installs and configures these components for secure certificate management.

For local development environments (i.e. Kind), these batteries are optional since everything runs locally.

All three batteries require minimal setup - once installed, they work automatically with no additional configuration required!

Cert Manager

Cert Manager is a Kubernetes controller that automates the management and issuance of TLS certificates. It supports various certificate sources and ensures your certificates stay valid by handling renewals automatically.

Cert Manager provides automated certificate issuance and renewal, and offers Kubernetes-native certificate management that integrates seamlessly with your infrastructure.

Installing Cert Manager

To set up Cert Manager:

  1. Navigate to the Net/Security section in the control server.
  2. Click Manage Batteries.
  3. Find and install the Cert Manager battery.
  4. Optionally provide an email address for certificate-related notifications.

For cloud deployments, Cert Manager is typically installed automatically as part of your initial setup.

Battery CA

Battery CA serves as the internal Certificate Authority for your Batteries Included installation. It provides the internal PKI infrastructure necessary for secure service-to-service communication and certificate signing for internal services. Once installed, Battery CA requires no additional configuration.

Installing Battery CA

To set up Battery CA:

  1. Navigate to the Net/Security section in the control server.
  2. Click Manage Batteries.
  3. Find and install the Battery CA battery.

Trust Manager

Trust Manager simplifies how applications in your cluster trust and verify certificates. It provides centralized management of trusted certificates and automatically updates all applications when trust settings change. Like other certificate batteries, it requires no configuration after installation.

Installing Trust Manager

To set up Trust Manager:

  1. Navigate to the Net/Security section in the control server.
  2. Click Manage Batteries.
  3. Find and install the Trust Manager battery.

Additional Resources

Related docs