 |
|
| Support Home Documentation Knowledgebase Help Desk Blog |
| Support Home > Signature > Web Server > Certificates > | Sunday, July 20, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Understanding Digital CertificatesThis help file is a brief look at acquiring, installing, and renewing a new digital certificate. Acquiring a New Digital CertificateA Digital Certificate is issued by a Certificate Authority (CA). A CA is third-party organization that represents both parties, certifying that a business, sellers, individual and website are connected.A CA has an essential role in data security and electronic commerce as a guarantor that the two parties dealing in electronic commerce or exchanging information are really who they claim to be. A digital certificate is used to create digital signatures that is a guarantee to both parties as a legal paper signature. The first part in acquiring a new digital certificate is that you must generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). A part of the generation process is creating a private key on the server. When the private key is created, it is not accessible. To access your private key you must contact support. Generating the CSR only generates a private key, if one does not existence. It is possible to generate as many CSRs as you want without any causing harm to the Digital Certificate. Which means, a CSR is simply, a request. It is nothing more and has no bearing upon any installed certificate once it has been installed. If any critical information changes during the life cycle of an installed Private Digital Certificate, a new CSR will need to be generated and resubmitted to a CA. After the CSR has been generated, contact a CA from the Certificate Authorities list, for example Verisign, Thawte, and so on, or one of your choosing to purchase a Signed Certificate. After you complete the requested information on the CA application, the CA gathers the required information (Articles of Incorporation and a Letter of Authorization from your company). They next verify the data. After the data is verified, they will send the Signed Certificate to you. Installing a New Digital CertificateWhen you receive the Signed Certificate, you will need to install it. The installation is performed through your account control panel interface. After installing the Signed Certificate, an active Private Certificate appears in the Certificate Name list in the Digital Certificate window. The Shared (default) Certificate status is now inactive.Only one certificate can be active at any one time. If you activate a certificate it will de-activate the other. Since you can not edit or delete the Public (Shared) Certificate that is installed by default on all accounts. This means a certificate will be available at all times. You can delete a Signed Certificate by clicking it's related delete link. But, if you delete a Signed Certificate, you are completely deleting all the certificate's data. The Signed Certificate is gone forever and cannot be accessed or retrieved. Renewing a New Digital CertificateUpdating or renewing a certificate is in essence installing a new certificate with an "extension". Most CAs will honor the amount time remaining on a certificate, if the time remaining is generally less than 90 days. The CA will add the time remaining onto the new certificate when you purchase it. When you purchase a new certificate the CA will add the time remaining onto the certificate. You must first verify that the CA you are purchasing the new certificate will honor the extension of the time remainingImportant The Signed Certificate contains two parts:
|
|
| Home | Site Map | Customer Backroom | Copyright © 1997-2008 AlpineWeb Design |