All posts tagged certificates

Always On VPN Ask Me Anything (AMA) November 2025

It’s been a while since we’ve held our last AMA, so I’ve added an event to the calendar so we can all connect once more before the end of the year. With that, the next Always On VPN AMA session is scheduled for Tuesday, November 18, 2025, at 10:00 AM PDT (UTC-8).

Do you have questions about Always On VPN? Are you having a specific issue you can’t figure out? Would you like more information about configuration options? Here’s your chance to get your questions answered! Register now and join the session to ask me anything (AMA!) about Microsoft Windows Always On VPN and related technologies.

The AMA will be an open forum session where we can all talk shop about Always On VPN and related technologies. It’s a great chance to learn new things and share experiences with your peers. We’ll discuss known issues and limitations, best practices, and more. I’m also planning to have some special guests, so be sure to join us!

Everyone is welcome. Don’t miss out on this excellent opportunity to connect and learn. Register now!

Can’t make the session? Register anyway, and I’ll send you the link to the recording as soon as it is available!

Certificate Connector for Microsoft Intune Agent Certificate Renewal Failure

The Certificate Connector for Microsoft Intune is a vital component that allows administrators to issue and manage enterprise PKI certificates to endpoints managed by Microsoft Intune. The connector is installed on a Windows server with access to the on-premises Certificate Authority (CA). It is registered with Intune and can be used by any PKCS or SCEP device configuration profiles defined by Intune administrators.

Agent Certificate

When you install the Certificate Connector for Intune, a certificate issued by the Microsoft Intune ImportPFX Connector CA is automatically enrolled into the local computer certificate store of the server where the connector is installed. This certificate authenticates the connector to Intune and is valid for one year from the date of issuance. This certificate is automatically renewed in most cases. However, some configurations prevent this from happening.

Failed To Renew

Administrators may find event log errors with event ID 2 from the CertificateConnectors source in the Microsoft-Intune-CertificateConnectors operational event log with the following information.

Pki Create Service:

Failed to renew agent certificate

System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException: Access is denied.

Root Cause

Agent certificate renewal fails when the Certificate Connector for Intune is running under a service account that is not a member of the local administrators security group. You will not encounter this error if the connector services are running in the SYSTEM context, however.

Resolution

There are a few different ways to resolve this issue. Here are some options to consider.

Grant Admin Rights

Adding the service account under which the connector service runs will allow the agent certificate to renew automatically. However, this may not be desirable from a security perspective. To address this, administrators may temporarily grant local administrative access to renew the agent certificate, then revoke this permission once the certificate has been successfully renewed. However, this is a manual process that doesn’t scale well and requires annual administrative intervention.

Reinstall

Uninstalling and reinstalling the Certificate Connector for Intune will force a new certificate enrollment during the registration process. You can delete the old certificate after completing the installation.

Switch to SYSTEM

Changing from a service account to SYSTEM will also resolve this issue. However, it is not recommended to make these changes directly on the services themselves. Instead, administrators should remove and reinstall the Certificate Connector for Intune, selecting the SYSTEM option rather than the service account method.

Note: Using the SYSTEM account for the Certificate Connector for Intune should be avoided when using PKCS. Details here.

Summary

The Certificate Connector for Intune agent certificate renewal fails when the service is configured to run as a service account without local administrative rights. The best way to resolve this is to add the service account to the local administrators group on the server where the connector is installed. However, this isn’t always ideal. Although running the connector in the SYSTEM context is acceptable when using SCEP, it should be avoided when using PKCS. Administrators will have to accept the risk of the service account having local administrative rights or accept that they’ll have to reinstall the connector annually.

Additional Information

Certificate Connector for Intune Service Account and PKCS

Strong Certificate Mapping for Intune PKCS and SCEP Certificates

Intune Strong Certificate Mapping Error

Intune PKCS and SCEP Certificate Validity Period

Certificate Connector for Intune Failure

Certificate Connector for Intune Configuration Failed

Troubleshooting Intune Failed PKCS Request

Always On VPN RRAS and PowerShell 7

PowerShell is an essential tool for administrators supporting Microsoft Always On VPN. It is critical for configuring supporting infrastructure services, such as Routing and Remote Access (RRAS) and Network Policy Server (NPS), as well as provisioning and managing Always On VPN client configuration settings on endpoints. The current version of PowerShell, PowerShell 7.5.3, is a game-changer for scripting and automation, bringing a host of improvements over its predecessors. PowerShell 7 offers better performance, lower memory usage, and cross-platform support (Windows, macOS, and Linux), making it more versatile than ever.

Problem in PowerShell 7

Recently, I discovered an oddity with PowerShell 7 when reviewing the configuration of an RRAS server. Specifically, PowerShell 7 differs in the way it produces output for the Get-RemoteAccess command, preventing administrators from viewing the details of the currently configured TLS certificate used for SSTP VPN connections in RRAS.

PowerShell 5

Running Get-RemoteAccess in PowerShell 5 provides detailed information about the SslCertificate property in the output of the command, as shown here.

Note that the data returned in the SslCertificate property is of the type X509Certificate2.

PowerShell 7

In PowerShell 7, Get-RemoteAccess displays only a string of numbers instead of detailed certificate information.

Notably, the data returned in the SslCertificate property is of the type System.Byte.

Solution

While PowerShell 7 doesn’t output the certificate details in human-readable form, you can easily convert the data using the following PowerShell command.

[System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2]::new((Get-RemoteAccess).SslCertificate) | Format-List

AovpnTools Module

To simplify administration, I’ve added a function to my AovpnTools PowerShell module called Get-VpnServerTlsCertificate. This function allows you to view the currently configured SSTP certificate details directly with a single command. In addition, you have the option to save the certificate to a file for further inspection and troubleshooting.

The GetVpnServerTlsCertificate function is included in AovpnTools v1.9.8 and later. You can install AovpnTools from the PowerShell gallery by running the following command.

Install-Module -Name AovpnTools

You can also find the AovpnTools PowerShell module on GitHub.

Summary

With PowerShell 7, RRAS certificate details display differently, but administrators can quickly resolve this using a simple conversion or the Get-VpnServerTlsCertificate function in the AovpnTools module. Either way, administrators can continue to use PowerShell 7 to manage their Windows Server RRAS servers.

Additional Information

Installing PowerShell 7 on Windows

AovpnTools in the PowerShell Gallery

AovpnTools on GitHub

Richard M. Hicks Consulting, Inc.

Microsoft MVP

TechMentor 2026

Consulting

Pluralsight