Sun Microsystems Netscape Enterprise Server, Administrator'S Manual

Page: 122 / 532

Requesting a Certificate
122 Netscape Enterprise Server Administrator’s Guide
The server generates a certificate request that contains your information. The
request has a digital signature created with your private key. The CA uses a
digital signature to verify that the request wasn’t tampered with during routing
from your server machine to the CA. In the rare event that the request is
tampered with, the CA will usually contact you by phone.
If you chose to email the request, the server composes an email message
containing the request and sends the message to the CA. Typically, the
certificate is sent to you via email. If instead you specified a URL to a certificate
server, your server uses the URL to submit the request to the Certificate Server.
You might get a response via email or other means depending on the CA.
If the CA agrees to issue you a certificate, the CA will notify you. (In most cases,
the CA will send your certificate via email. If your organization is using a
certificate server, you may be able to search for the certificate by using the
certificate server’s forms.)
Once you receive the certificate, you can install it. In the meantime, you can
still use your server without SSL.
Required CA Information
Whether you are requesting a server certificate from a commercial CA or an
internal CA, you need to provide the following information:
• Common Name must be the fully qualified hostname used in DNS lookups
(for example, www.netscape.com ). This is the hostname in the URL that a
browser uses to connect to your site. It’s important that these two names
are the same, otherwise a client is notified that the certificate name doesn’t
match the site name, which will make people doubt the authenticity of your
certificate. However, some CAs might require different information, so it’s
important to contact them. Note that you can not use wildcards in a
common name.
• Email Address is your business email address. This is used for
correspondence between you and the CA.
• Organization is the official, legal name of your company, educational
institution, partnership, and so on. Most CAs require that you verify this
information with legal documents (such as a copy of a business license).