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Receiving a signed certificate from a certificate authority
This topic describes how to receive an electronically mailed certificate from a certificate authority (CA), that is designated as a trusted CA on your server. A certificate authority is a trusted third-party organization or company that issues digital certificates used to create digital signatures and public-private key pairs.
By default, the following CA certificates are stored in the key database and marked as trusted CA certificates:
- RSA Secure Server Certification Authority (from VeriSign)
- Thawte Personal Basic CA
- Thawte Personal Freemail CA
- Thawte Personal Premium CA
- Thawte Personal Server CA
- Thawte Server CA
- Verisign Class 1 CA Individual-Persona Not Validated
- Verisign Class 2 CA Individual-Persona Not Validated
- Verisign Class 3 CA Individual-Persona Not Validated
- Verisign Class 1 CA Public Primary Certification Authority
- Verisign Test CA Root Certificate
The certificate authority can send more than one certificate. In addition to the certificate for your server, the CA can also send additional signing certificates or intermediate CA certificates. For example, Verisign includes an intermediate CA certificate when sending a Global Server ID certificate.
Before receiving the server certificate, receive any additional intermediate CA certificates. Follow the instructions in the Storing a CA certificate topic to receive intermediate CA certificates.
Receive the CA-signed certificate into a key database as follows:
- Start the ikeyman user interface.
- Click Key Database File from the main UI, then click Open.
- Enter your key database name in the Open dialog box, or click the key.kdb file, if we use the default. Click OK.
- Enter your correct password in the Password Prompt dialog box, then click OK.
- Click Personal Certificates in the Key database content frame, then click Receive.
- Enter the name of a valid Base64-encoded file in the Certificate file name text field in the Receive certificate from a file dialog box. Click OK.
Related information
Managing keys with the ikeyman graphical interface (Distributed systems)