Instruction Manual
164
Self-Signed Private Certificates
If you wish to create your own self-signed encryption key and certificate, a free utility
– openssl.exe – is available for download over the web at www.openssl.org. To create
your private key and certificate do the following:
1. Go to the directory where you downloaded and extracted openssl.exe to.
2. Run openssl.exe with the following parameters:
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:1024 -days 3653 -nodes -x509 -keyout CA.key -out
CA.cer -config openssl.cnf
NOTE:
1. The command should be entered all on one line (i.e., do not press [Enter] until all the
parameters have been keyed in).
2. If there are spaces in the input, surround the entry in quotes
(e.g., “ATEN International”).
To avoid having to input information during key generation the following additional
parameters can be used:
/C /ST /L /O /OU /CN /emailAddress.
Examples
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:1024 -days 3653 -nodes -x509 -keyout CA.key
-out CA.cer -config openssl.cnf -subj /C=yourcountry/ST=yourstateorprovince/
L=yourlocationor city/O=yourorganiztion/OU=yourorganizationalunit/
CN=yourcommonname/[email protected]
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:1024 -days 3653 -nodes -x509 -keyout CA.key -out
CA.cer -config openssl.cnf -subj /C=CA/ST=BC/L=Richmond/O=”ATEN International”/
OU=ATEN
/CN=ATEN/[email protected]
Importing the Files
After the openssl.exe program completes, two files – CA.key (the private key) and
CA.cer (the self-signed SSL certificate) – are created in the directory that you ran the
program from. These are the files that you upload in the
Private Certificate
panel of the
Security page.
