Self Signed Certificate: Certificates used in Professional Websites

April 6th, 2011

The identity certificate signed by the creator is called self signed certificate. It is mainly used to set up temporary SSL servers. These SSL certificates are used to run websites. Especially for the professional web sites these certificates are purchased.

Why is it necessary to use self signed certificate?

It serves two essential purposes; this helps in gaining trust of the visitors to the site so that the visitors will know that they are not sending their information to wrong persons. These are the two main purposes.

Distribution of public key.
And for verifying the identity of the server.
When a third party signs it, only then the identity of the server is verified because any person can create a fake certificate and launch the man into an attack. If the user accepts this certificate it can even set up an imitation server to trick into someone to give out the additional and personal information. Due to this, not many wish to use this certificate on the server that needs unsigned visitors to connect to the sites.

These certificates have their own place such as:

With the help of local internet the clients can get the server, there is no chance of any middle attack.
When you are just testing an application, there is no need of paying any extra amount for it.
Suppose you have some small personal sites which transfer non critical information, then there would be small chances of someone trying to attack the connection.
It is very important to know that the visitors should check the warnings displayed in the browsers before connecting to a server which uses self signed certificate until it is permanently stored in their certificate store.

One can also refer to www.justparalegalcertification.com for paralegal certification process and things to know to become a paralegal.

Self Signed Certificates: Key Tool Plays a Major Role in Self Signed Certification.

April 6th, 2011

The certificate created by a person on his own is known as self signed certificates. Between the clients and servers these certificates encrypts communication channel. You can even create them for free since at times cost is a major concern. To generate this certificate you need a program known as the ‘key tool’. This key tool is a certificate management utility. It’s a multipurpose utility program. To a secure connection two sets of certificates are used in SSL connection one is the key store and the other is a trust store which proves that the key store in used on behalf of a particular domain and trust store is used on the behalf of a particular user. Key tool maintains the certificates in key store. This key store is implemented as a file which protects the key with a password. This key tool is mainly used to read, update, create and delete entries in the files. It contains the keys and certificates for the server. Key tool can create an associated certificate “chain”.

The chain contains a single element, self signed certificate, when it is generated first. This certificate is one in which the signer is same as the subject. There is a command known as ‘genkey’ command which is called to generate a new public or a private key pair, which wraps the public key into a self signed certificates. Particularly the public key is valid in this certificate and then certificate signing request is generated and sent to Certification Authority (CA). And it’s replaced by the chain of certificates. It should be verified and signed by CA.

Self signed certificates: High Degree Security Provider

April 6th, 2011

Self signed certificates are created by Microsoft office 2007. It is mainly used to sign digitally and encrypt office system documents. It is set up by the public key infrastructure usually used by small business and individuals. They are only useful in exchanging documents with only whom you know personally. These certificates are easy to use and to even create them. It rightly suits for the use of small trading groups. It provides a high degree of security. It is generated using web logic integration.

For logging into cPanel, self signed certificates are used. To make this certificate exclusive to a particular web site you need a dedicated IP address which should have its own cPanel account formed in WHM. To make SSL server work on your sites you can have a look at the set up.

One advantage of using this certificate is:

To access cPanel you can use different ports.
One disadvantage of self signed certificate is:

It will be not able to work on every browser such as Google chrome so each and every time you need to work on Firefox.
You need to complete the following tasks in order to configure SSL on the server:

Go to command line to create a self signed server certificate and change the directories to security directory of your open fire installation. Suppose if you find default key store change the key store password. And now you can create the certificate using key tool.
After creating you have to submit it to the CA and follow their instructions to get it verified.