Appendix A Understanding CiscoWorks Security
Server Security
A-10
User Guide for CiscoWorks Common Services
78-16571-01
Base64- Encoded X.509 Certificate Format
X.509 certificate format is an emerging certificate standard. It is part of the OSI
group of standards. X.509 certificates are very clearly defined using a notation
called ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation 1) which specifies the precise kinds of
binary data that make up the certificate.
ASN.1 can be encoded in many ways, but the emerging standard is an encoding
called DER (Distinguished Encoding Rules), which results in a compact binary
certificate.
For e-mail exchange purposes the binary certificate is often Base64 encoded,
resulting in an ASCII text document that looks like the following:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIC4jCCAkugAwIBAgIEA0E1UDANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQBhMC
VVMxCzAJBgNVBAgTAkNBMREwDwYDVQQHEwhTYNQ2lz
Y28gU3lzdGVtczENMAsGA1UECxMERU1CVTEqMCgG0ZXN0
MiBDZXJ0aWZpY2F0ZSBNYW5hZ2VyMB4XDTAyMDas3DA4
NTgwOVowgYIxCzAJBgNVBAYTAklOMQswCQYDVQQIQ2hl
bm5haTEMMAoGA1UEChMDSENMMQ0wCwYDVQQLEtzZGlu
YWthci1wYzEhMB8GCSqGSIb3DQEJARYSc2RpbmFrYXfMA0G
CSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDV1o9PyO7txr5vme
FU/f9tp5To/HaLIWHVx9zpihPnVuKaepp8kcEXO8Sed8crXeU8BP
9qHoIswGn1oJEGFXm9gs5uupJyAgeDd6O9eCuQbiSKgE1sFGFSL
xNGQJZbCrQIDAQABo2UwYzARBglghkgBhvhCAQEEB/BAQD
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
CiscoWorks requires the Certificates to be uploaded in this format.
Note
Other certificate formats such as PKCS#7 also have similar formats. Hence it is
important that you confirm with the CA the format of the certificate, and request
specifically for Base64 Encoded X.509Certificates formats.