Granted Patent B2

US 12,563,029 · App. 18/353,991 · Granted Feb 24, 2026

Inventors: Burak Uzun (London, GB); Geetha Ravi (England, GB); Josko Petric (Wootton, GB)

Assignee: Oracle International Corporation

H04L63/0823H04L41/0806

Abstract

Claims (126)

1 . A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by one or more hardware processors, causes performance of operations comprising:

detecting, during a provisioning process for a cloud resource instance associated with a virtual cloud network, a certificate bundle-retrieval trigger;

responsive to detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger, sending, to an agent executing on a network interface linked to the cloud resource instance, a request for a certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance;

receiving from the agent executing on the network interface, the certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance, the certificate bundle comprising a set of one or more certificate authority (CA) certificates;

installing the certificate bundle in a storage medium associated with the cloud resource instance to facilitate establishing a secure communication for one or more operations of the provisioning process occurring subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium;

subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium, executing the one or more operations of the provisioning process, the one or more operations of the provisioning process relying on at least one CA certificate, of the set of one or more CA certificates, to establish the secure communication with at least one network entity associated with the virtual cloud network.

2 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger comprises:

an executable command associated with an operation of the provisioning process.

3 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the agent executing on the network interface comprises a certificate distribution service executing on the network interface, wherein responsive to receiving the request for the certificate bundle, the certificate distribution service provides the certificate bundle for installation in the storage medium associated with the cloud resource instance.

4 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the set of one or more CA certificates comprise at least one of: a set of root certificates, or a set of intermediate certificates.

5 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:

prior to installing the certificate bundle, performing a validation of the certificate bundle;

determining that the certificate bundle passes the validation;

wherein installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium is responsive to determining that the certificate bundle passes the validation.

6 . The medium of claim 5 ,

wherein the validation comprises executing a subject key identifier check for at least a subset of CA certificates from among the set of one or more CA certificates,

wherein for a first CA certificate, the subject key identifier check comprises:

computing a first hash value of a first public key corresponding to the first CA certificate,

determining a first subject key identifier corresponding to the first CA certificate,

comparing the first hash value to the first subject key identifier,

determining a match between the first hash value and the first subject key identifier, and

determining, based on the match, that the first CA certificate passes the subject key identifier check; and

wherein the operations further comprise:

determining that each CA certificate of at least the subset of CA certificates passes the subject key identifier check.

7 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:

prior to installing the certificate bundle, performing a validation of the certificate bundle, wherein the certificate bundle fails the validation;

generating an alert for display on a user interface device, the alert indicating the certificate bundle having failed the validation.

8 . The medium of claim 7 , wherein the operations further comprise:

responsive to determining that the certificate bundle having failed the validation, sending, to the agent executing on the network interface, a subsequent request for an updated certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance;

receiving from the agent executing on the network interface, the updated certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance, the updated certificate bundle comprising an updated set of CA certificates;

performing a subsequent validation of the updated certificate bundle, wherein the updated certificate bundle passes the subsequent validation;

wherein installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium comprises installing the updated certificate bundle in the storage medium responsive to determining that the updated certificate bundle passes the subsequent validation.

9 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:

sending a notification to a provisioning module executing on the cloud resource instance, the notification indicating the certificate bundle having been installed in the storage medium;

wherein the provisioning module (a) utilizes the at least one CA certificate, of the set of one or more CA certificates, to establish the secure communication with the at least one network entity associated with the virtual cloud network, and (b) performs the one or more operations of the provisioning process utilizing the secure communication.

10 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprises:

subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium, further performing the provisioning process;

wherein further performing the provisioning process comprises:

initializing a security protocol for the secure communication, wherein the secure communication is between the cloud resource instance and a first network entity associated with the virtual cloud network,

wherein initializing the security protocol comprises:

receiving an entity certificate from the first network entity, and

authenticating the entity certificate using a first CA certificate of the set of one or more CA certificates in the certificate bundle; and

executing the one or more operations of the provisioning process, the one or more operations comprising:

receiving a first secure communication from the first network entity in accordance with the security protocol; or

sending a second secure communication to the first network entity in accordance with the security protocol.

11 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprises:

subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium, performing at least one subsequent provisioning operation of the provisioning process, the at least one subsequent provisioning operation comprising at least one of:

sending, to a service agent executing on the cloud resource instance, a notification comprising a location of the certificate bundle in the storage medium; or

sending the certificate bundle to the service agent.

12 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:

performing at least one provisioning operation of the provisioning process prior to detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger, wherein the at least one provisioning operation comprises:

configuring one or more network configuration settings for the cloud resource instance.

13 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:

prior to detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger, receiving the certificate bundle at the agent executing on the network interface; and

storing the certificate bundle in a network interface storage medium of the network interface.

14 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:

performing a network configuration stage of the provisioning process; and

during or subsequent to the network configuration stage, performing at least one of:

detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger;

receiving the certificate bundle; or

installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium.

15 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:

generating a file directory in the storage medium;

installing the certificate bundle in the file directory; and

sending, to a service agent executing on the cloud resource instance, a message comprising a directory path to the file directory.

16 . A method, comprising:

detecting, during a provisioning process for a cloud resource instance associated with a virtual cloud network, a certificate bundle-retrieval trigger;

responsive to detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger, sending, to an agent executing on a network interface linked to the cloud resource instance, a request for a certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance;

receiving from the agent executing on the network interface, the certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance, the certificate bundle comprising a set of one or more certificate authority (CA) certificates;

installing the certificate bundle in a storage medium associated with the cloud resource instance to facilitate establishing a secure communication for one or more operations of the provisioning process occurring subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium;

subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium, executing the one or more operations of the provisioning process, the one or more operations of the provisioning process relying on at least one CA certificate, of the set of one or more CA certificates, to establish the secure communication with at least one network entity associated with the virtual cloud network;

wherein the method is performed using at least one hardware device.

17 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

prior to installing the certificate bundle, performing a validation of the certificate bundle;

determining that the certificate bundle passes the validation;

wherein installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium is responsive to determining that the certificate bundle passes the validation.

18 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

sending a notification to a provisioning module executing on the cloud resource instance, the notification indicating the certificate bundle having been installed in the storage medium;

wherein the provisioning module (a) utilizes the at least one CA certificate, of the set of one or more CA certificates, to establish the secure communication with the at least one network entity associated with the virtual cloud network, and (b) performs the one or more operations of the provisioning process utilizing the secure communication.

19 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium, performing at least one subsequent provisioning operation of the provisioning process, the at least one subsequent provisioning operation comprising at least one of:

sending, to a service agent executing on the cloud resource instance, a notification comprising a location of the certificate bundle in the storage medium; or

sending the certificate bundle to the service agent.

20 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

performing at least a first provisioning operation of the provisioning process prior to detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger;

subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium, performing at least a second provisioning operation of the provisioning process.

21 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

responsive to detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger:

initiating a certificate bundle provisioning phase, comprising:

sending the request for the certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance,

receiving the certificate bundle, and

installing the certificate bundle;

subsequent to the certificate bundle provisioning phase:

performing the one or more operations of the provisioning process.

22 . The method of claim 21 , further comprising:

determining that one or more operations associated with the certificate bundle provisioning phase are complete;

responsive to determining that the one or more operations associated with the certificate bundle provisioning phase are complete:

performing the one or more operations of the provisioning process.

23 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

prior to detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger:

performing at least one operation associated with a configuration file generation phase of the provisioning process, or

performing at least one operation associated with a local environment setup phase of the provisioning process;

subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium:

performing at least one operation associated with an instance parameter configuration phase of the provisioning process, or

performing at least one operation associated with an instance finalization phase of the provisioning process.

24 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the network interface comprises a network interface card, and wherein the agent is executing on the network interface card.

25 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the provisioning process comprises:

initializing a security protocol at least by utilizing a first CA certificate, of the set of CA certificates, to authenticate an entity certificate of a first network entity associated with the virtual cloud network;

receiving, from the first network entity in accordance with the security protocol, a first secure communication comprising data for at least one provisioning operation of the provisioning process.

26 . A system, comprising:

at least one hardware processor;

the system being configured to execute operations, using the at least one hardware processor, the operations comprising:

detecting, during a provisioning process for a cloud resource instance associated with a virtual cloud network, a certificate bundle-retrieval trigger;

responsive to detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger, sending, to an agent executing on a network interface linked to the cloud resource instance, a request for a certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance;

receiving from the agent executing on the network interface, the certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance, the certificate bundle comprising a set of one or more certificate authority (CA) certificates;

installing the certificate bundle in a storage medium associated with the cloud resource instance to facilitate establishing a secure communication one or more operations of the provisioning process occurring subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium;

subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium, executing the one or more operations of the provisioning process, the one or more operations of the provisioning process relying on at least one CA certificate, of the set of one or more CA certificates, to establish the secure communication with at least one network entity associated with the virtual cloud network.

27 . A method, comprising:

detecting, during a provisioning process for a cloud resource instance associated with a virtual cloud network, a certificate bundle-retrieval trigger, wherein a first portion of a network configuration phase of the provisioning process is performed prior to detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger;

responsive to detecting the certificate bundle-retrieval trigger, sending, to an agent executing on a network interface linked to the cloud resource instance, a request for a certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance;

receiving from the agent executing on the network interface, the certificate bundle for the cloud resource instance, the certificate bundle comprising a set of one or more certificate authority (CA) certificates;

installing the certificate bundle in a storage medium associated with the cloud resource instance, wherein installing the certificate bundle represents an operation of the provisioning process;

subsequent to installing the certificate bundle in the storage medium, performing a second portion of the network configuration phase.

28 . The method of claim 27 ,

wherein the first portion of the network configuration phase comprises configuring a network interface setting, or

wherein the second portion of the network configuration phase comprises configuring a security protocol setting.

Assignments (1)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (196)