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APEX communicates using SSL port 443 (https) and some communications take place using port 80 (http). The following table contains a list of hosts that must be reachable in order for APEX to be installed or be used after the installation:

Note 1: Several digital certificates are used in support of CeRTNA/APEX, these include SSL certificates, PKI certificates for digital signatures, PKI certificates for encryption/decryption, and code-signing certificates. The CeRTNA APEX application uses core WCF & .NET functionality to verify that the PKI certifcates are still valid and have not expired. Further, during the APEX installation/update process, the code-signing certificate is validated. The lower level WCF & .NET API's communicate using port 80 for OCSP and CRL certificate validation functions. It is important that your firewall team take this into consideration.

CeRTNA recognizes that different firewalls are in service at our customers and that firewall features functions can vary broadly. CeRTNA prefers to minimize the amount of IT administrative support required by creating rules based on the following tolerance and/or capabilities of your firewall:

• Use wildcard domains if possible. (Ex: *.certna.org or *.certnag2g.org)
• Use host names if possible. (Ex: apex-prd.certna.org or reports.certna.org)
• Last resort, use IP addresses. (This is the least preferred.)

The preceding list is sorted in order of preference.

In addition to the locations listed above, there are some additional hosts that you also want to allow in order to facilitate the retrieval of Windows Updates and for CeRTNA remote support.

Configuring the firewall rules for Windows Updates and other fundamental OS support, for example, virus definition files for Symantec Endpoint Protection or other 3rd party anti-virus/anti-malware protection is the responsibility of your organizations IT staff. The information provided in the preceding table is here simply point out that there are additional URL's that may need to be accomodated beyond those that are required for APEX and/or CeRTNA functionality.

Note 2: Although APEX will function properly without knowing its public IP, allowing APEX to report the public IP of the client is very helpful in diagnostic and troubleshooting as it allows CeRTNA to identify the specific client traffic in our firewall. It preferred that you allow http://checkip.dyndns.org to be accessed from the ERDS or G2G workstation. Please note that the connection is made over the standard http port 80.