Michael Waterman

Ramblings on IT and Security

Month: August 2026

Part 3: Installing the Certificate Enrollment Web Service (CES)

August 3, 2026 / / 0 Comments

In the previous article, we deployed the Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service (CEP) and configured support for Kerberos, Username/Password, and Client Certificate authentication. Clients can now successfully retrieve certificate enrollment policies over HTTPS using the XCEP protocol. However, while the policy infrastructure is now in place, clients still have no way to request certificates.

In this article, I’ll complete the Microsoft Certificate Enrollment Services architecture by deploying the Certificate Enrollment Web Service (CES). I’ll prepare Active Directory, configure a dedicated Group Managed Service Account (gMSA), install IIS, deploy the CES role, configure the supported authentication methods, and validate the deployment using PowerShell. By the end of this article, you’ll have a fully operational Certificate Enrollment Web Service capable of securely processing certificate requests over HTTPS using the WSTEP protocol.

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Part 2: Installing the Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service (CEP)

August 3, 2026 / / 0 Comments

In the first article of this series, I explored the architecture behind Microsoft Certificate Enrollment Services (CEP & CES) and discussed why Microsoft introduced these web services.I looked at the differences between traditional Active Directory Certificate Services enrollment and the HTTPS-based enrollment model, explained the XCEP and WSTEP protocols, and followed the complete certificate enrollment process from start to finish. Now it’s time to move from theory to implementation.

In this article, I’ll build a complete Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service (CEP) from scratch using PowerShell. Rather than simply installing the Windows role, I’ll also prepare Active Directory, create the required security groups, configure a Group Managed Service Account (gMSA), install IIS, configure the supported authentication methods, and validate that the deployment is functioning correctly. By the end of this article, you’ll have a fully operational Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service capable of serving enrollment policies over HTTPS using Kerberos, Username/Password, or Client Certificate authentication.

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Part 1: Understanding Microsoft Certificate Enrollment Services (CEP & CES)

August 2, 2026 / / 2 Comments

If you’ve ever worked with Microsoft Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS), you’ve probably come across the Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service (CEP) and the Certificate Enrollment Web Service (CES). While Microsoft provides documentation on both services, I often notice that the focus is on how to install them rather than why they exist and how they fit into the bigger picture.

When I started diving into CEP and CES myself, I quickly discovered that understanding the architecture is far more important than simply clicking through an installation wizard. Why are there two separate web services? What problem were they designed to solve? What are XCEP and WSTEP? And when should you actually consider deploying CEP and CES instead of relying on traditional certificate enrollment?

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