Creating a Certificate Signing Request

Certificate Signing Requests are used to supply a Certification Authority with the information required to issue a valid certificate for you without knowing your private key. This includes your personal information and your public key. You can get a CA-signed certificate by creating a Certificate Signing Request. The CA-signed certificate provides two important abilities for your server:

• Browsers usually automatically recognize the certificate and allow a secure connection to be made, without prompting the user.
• When a CA issues the signed certificate, they guarantee the identity of the organization that is providing the browser with the Web pages.

To generate a Certificate Signing Request, perform the following operations:

1. On the top frame, click My Profile > SSL Certificates. Click Create Certificate Signing Request.

2. On the displayed page, enter the information needed for creating a Certificate Signing Request.

   Option	Description
   Bits	Select the level of encryption of your SSL certificate. Select an appropriate number from the drop-down menu.
   Key type	For generating your certificate, the RSA private key is used.
   Country	Select a country from the drop-down list.
   State/Province	Specify a state or province.
   Location (City)	Specify a location (city).
   Organization name	Enter the appropriate organization name.
   Organization Unit name	Type an appropriate department or division of your organization.
   Common name	Enter the domain name for which you wish to generate the self-signed certificate.
   Email	Specify an email address.

3. After filling in the fields provided, click Next.

4. On the displayed page, you see two download links: Certificate signing request and Private key signing request.

   • For the Certificate signing request link, click Download to download the signed request to your local computer. Later, you will attach the request to your email and send it to a Certificate Authority such as Verisign or Thawte.
   • For the Private key signing request link, click Download to download the key to your local computer. Keep this key in a safe place, as you will need this key during the certificate installation process. Losing it is will likely result in the need to generate another certificate. The key will be saved into the repository when the Store private key in repository check box is selected. Deselect the check box if you do not want to store it there.
5. Click Close.