Netscape Certificate Management System 6.0, Manual

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What You Should Already Know
About This Guide 13
What You Should Already Know
This guide is intended for experienced system administrators who are planning to
deploy Certificate Management System. CMS agents should refer to CMS Agent’s
Guide for information on how to perform agent tasks, such as handling certificate
requests and revoking certificates.
This guide assumes that you
• Are familiar with the basic concepts of public-key cryptography and the Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
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SSL cipher suites
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The purpose of and major steps in the SSL handshake
• Understand the concepts of intranet, extranet, and the Internet security and the
role of digital certificates in a secure enterprise. These include the following
topics:
❍
Encryption and decryption
❍
Public keys, private keys, and symmetric keys
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Significance of key lengths
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Digital signatures
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Digital certificates, including various types of digital certificates
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The role of digital certificates in a public-key infrastructure (PKI)
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Certificate hierarchies
If you are new to these concepts, we recommend that you read the
security-related appendixes ( Appendix D and Appendix E ) of the
accompanying manual, Managing Servers with Netscape Console.
• Are familiar with the role of Netscape Console in managing Netscape version
4.x servers. Otherwise, see the accompanying manual, Managing Servers with
Netscape Console.
• Are reading this guide in conjunction with the documentation listed in section
“Where to Go for Related Information” on page 15.