Error: "Access is denied" when attempting to download Certificate and key from the Web Console

Symptom

When attempting to download a certificate and private key from Venafi Director, a popup with the following error is displayed:

An error occurred while downloading certificate: Access is denied.

Cause

There are two possible causes for this error message:

1. Insufficient Rights to the Certificate object within Venafi Director
2. Insufficient Windows rights to: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\S-1-5-18

Resolution

For the causes above, here are the steps to resolve:

Issue 1: Verify that the user has at minimum the following rights to that Certificate object.

• View
• Read
• Write
• Private Key Read

Issue 2:

1. Verify that the account that the VEDAdmin application pool runs as has full control to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\S-1-5-18
2. To verify, the following command can be run from an administrative command prompt:cacls C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\S-1-5-18