I’m excited to announce I’ll present a three-day LIVE online training event covering all things Microsoft Intune and certificates. This training event takes place on the ViaMonstra online academyMay 14-16, 2024.
Course Material
This training course comprehensively examines all aspects of delivering certificates using Microsoft Intune, including common deployment scenarios, PKCS and SCEP configuration, Intune certificate connector configuration, high availability strategies, implementation and security best practices, and troubleshooting.
Cloud PKI
Cloud PKI, a new cloud-based PKI-as-a-Service solution from Microsoft, will also be covered in depth. I’ll provide an overview of the service and discuss the advantages and limitations of Cloud PKI. We’ll also cover different configuration and deployment scenarios, including Bring Your Own CA (BYOCA). In addition, I’ll share security best practices for Microsoft Cloud PKI deployments.
Register Now
Space is limited, so don’t miss out on this excellent opportunity to learn about these critically essential technologies. Reserve your spot in this training class today!
The Microsoft Intune Certificate Connector enables the provisioning and de-provisioning of on-premises PKI certificates for Intune-managed devices. Always On VPN administrators using Intune to deploy certificates with the Intune Certificate Connector using either PKCS or SCEP may encounter a scenario where certificates are no longer being provisioned to users or devices after working reliably previously.
Certificate Not Found
When this issue occurs, users will no longer be able to access the VPN and receive a “certificate could not be found that can be used with this Extensible Authentication Protocol” error message.
Connector Status
To determine the status of the Intune Certificate Connector, open the Microsoft Intune Admin Center (https://intune.microsoft.com) and navigate to Tenant Administration > Connectors and Tokens > Certificate Connectors. The status of the certificate connector server will be in Error.
Event Log
Open the event log on the server where the Intune Certificate Connector is installed. Navigate to Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Intune > CertificateConnectors > Operational. Here, you will find a variety of warning and error messages.
Event ID 5001
This is a warning from the CertificateConnectors source with event ID 5001 in the Task Category HealthMessageUploadFailedAttempt with the following details.
PKI Create Service:
Failed to upload health messages. Requeuing messages.
Event ID 1003
This is an error from the CertificateConnectors source with event ID 1003 in the Task Category PkcsDownloadFailure with the following details.
PKI Create Service:
Failed to download PKCS requests.
Event ID 2
This is an error from the CertificateConnectors source with event ID 2 in the Task Category Exception with the following details.
PKI Create Service:
Microsoft.Intune.Connectors.PkiCreateProcessor.Process threw an exception.
Expired Certificate
The warning and error messages recorded in the event log indicate an expired certificate on the Intune Certificate Connector server. Open the local computer certificate store (certlm.msc) on the server where the Intune Certificate Connector is installed. Review the expiration date of the certificate issued by Microsoft Intune ImportPFX Connector CA. It is most likely expired.
Click on the Certification Path tab to view the certificate status.
Renew Certificate
To renew this certificate, you must reinstall the Intune Certificate Connector. However, you do not have to uninstall it first. To renew the certificate, navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Intune\PFXCertificateConnector\ConnectorUI and double-click on PFXCertificateConnectorUI.exe. Follow the prompts without making changes to the existing configuration. You’ll be prompted for the service account password (if using a domain account) and proxy credentials (if using a proxy server). In addition, you’ll be asked to sign in to Entra ID (formerly Azure AD). Be sure to provide credentials that are a global administrator and have an Intune license assigned. Once the process is complete, a new certificate will be installed in the local computer certificate store.
Intune Configuration
After updating the Intune Certificate Connector, a new certificate connector appears in the Intune Admin Center. You can now safely delete the old connector and rename the new one accordingly.
Redundancy
Deploying multiple instances of the Intune Certificate Connector is an excellent way to avoid future outages! It’s also a good idea to stagger their installation by a few months to ensure that a future certificate expiration doesn’t result in lost functionality. If you’ve deployed Intune Certificate Connectors recently, consider updating them at rotating intervals so certificates expire at different times.
Always On VPN administrators migrating their endpoints to Windows 11 may encounter a scenario where Always On VPN randomly disconnects when the VPN profile is deployed using Microsoft Intune. The same configuration deployed to Windows 10 devices works reliably, however. In addition, Always On VPN profiles deployed using PowerShell (natively or with SCCM) or PowerON DPC do not experience this problem.
Troubleshooting
Administrators troubleshooting this issue will find the root cause is associated with the Always On VPN profiles being removed and replaced each time the device syncs with Intune. This occurs even if there are no changes to the configuration. Removing and replacing the Always On VPN profiles on each device sync is unnecessary, of course, but is also highly disruptive to connected users.
Intune and XML
The Intune team identified the issue, and a fix was made available in the August update. However, many of you have reported the issue persists with some Windows 11 clients after installing the latest updates. Further investigation indicates that although the issue has been resolved when using Intune and the native VPN device configuration profile template, the problem still occurs when using the Custom device configuration template.
Workaround
Microsoft is aware of the issues with deploying Always On VPN client configuration settings using XML in Intune, but there’s no indication when or if they will fix it. Until then, administrators have two options to address this problem.
Native VPN Template
When deploying Always On VPN client configuration settings to Windows 11 endpoints, use the native VPN device configuration template, as shown here.
Using the native VPN template does have some limitations, however. The following settings are not exposed using the native VPN template and can only be configured using XML.
If you must use XML, I’ve had some success by ensuring the order of XML settings is exactly as Intune expects. Follow the steps below to confirm the XML settings order in your XML configuration file.
Compare the order of settings to your existing XML.
Make changes to ensure all settings in your XML are in the same order as the extracted XML.
Publish a new XML configuration file using Intune and test.
I’ll caution you that this workaround doesn’t always work reliably. Some customers report that this solved their problems entirely, while others have indicated it does not. My testing shows the same results. Let us know in the comments below if this works for you!