Defense-in-depth for certificate lifecycle automation—without turning your edge into a wider attack surface.
Certinite separates the control plane (policy, visibility, CA orchestration) from the data plane (local validation, store imports, and web-server binding). That separation is how we keep private keys and privileged operations on the servers that already terminate TLS—while still giving operators a single pane of glass.
Automation fails audits when it is opaque. Certinite is designed so responsibilities are explicit: the dashboard coordinates what should happen; the agent performs what must happen locally.
The control plane stores tenant metadata, domain lifecycle state, and job scheduling. It does not replace local OS trust stores or IIS binding mechanics—those remain on the host where your applications run.
Agents authenticate as machine/workload identities separate from human dashboard users. That distinction matters for incident response: you can revoke agent credentials, rotate access, and reason about blast radius without conflating “someone logged in” with “this server can still execute jobs.”
Certificates and private material are high-value targets. Transport and handling assumptions should match that reality.
Jobs are constructed so sensitive payloads are not treated like routine log lines. Agents use their own cryptographic relationship to the platform so material is not casually replayable across unrelated hosts.
Many certificate incidents start with accidental exposure: open ports, shared admin credentials, or “temporary” firewall rules. Certinite’s default posture favors narrow network requirements.
Agents do not require an inbound listener for standard polling flows. They establish outbound HTTPS and WebSocket connectivity to the control plane, which fits common enterprise egress models and proxy configurations.
HTTP-01 validation can be completed using web-server reachability—without handing over DNS API tokens that could affect unrelated records.
Certinite orchestrates ACME HTTP-01 in a way that keeps validation responsibilities aligned to the hostname’s serving path. That means you are not asked to share cloud DNS API keys with the platform to complete standard DV validation.
HTTP-01 still requires your web server to answer validation requests on port 80 from the public internet according to your certificate authority’s requirements. Network policy should allow outbound connectivity from agents to your configured control-plane endpoint.
If you are an MSP—or you simply separate production from staging—you need logical boundaries that do not depend on operator discipline alone.
Workspaces are designed to keep customer and environment boundaries explicit: domains, agents, and lifecycle actions are scoped to the tenant context. Centralized visibility should not mean centralized commingling of unrelated assets.
The dashboard is a control surface. We treat it accordingly.
Certinite supports modern sign-in options suited to both self-serve teams and enterprises that care about account hygiene. Additional verification steps exist where they matter most—especially for password-based paths.
The product is architected so sensitive installation work happens on the server via the agent. The control plane coordinates issuance and lifecycle state; it is not a substitute for local OS trust boundaries. For formal data-handling questions, contact security operations with your compliance frame (e.g., region, retention, subprocessors).
Standard polling flows are built around outbound connectivity from the agent to the control plane. You should still meet CA requirements for HTTP-01 (typically public reachability on port 80 to the validating hostname) and allow outbound HTTPS according to your deployment model.
For standard HTTP-01 flows, validation is anchored to web-server behavior rather than DNS control-plane APIs. Avoiding DNS API sharing reduces a major class of over-privileged integrations—especially for DV certificates.
Use separate workspaces per customer (or per environment) and treat agent credentials as customer-scoped machine identities. The goal is predictable blast radius: offboarding a client should not require hunting for shared secrets across unrelated tenants.
Start with the Features page for capability depth, Documentation for architecture, and Enterprise or MSPs pages if you are planning scaled deployments.
If you are evaluating Certinite under vendor risk, procurement, or enterprise security review, we can align materials to your questionnaire and threat model.
