110
edits
Changes
From SME Server
Jump to navigationJump to search
mLine 16:
Line 16: − + Line 38:
Line 38: +
added source and link to Custom_CA_Certificate howto
If you use a commercially available certificate & pay money for it, the organisation who issues the certificate pays big money to Microsoft & Mozilla etc to have their root certificate installed in the browser by default. That's why if you use a good quality commercial certificate on your server, then when a visitor to your site accesses https://.... , they will not be asked anything about the certificate mismatching or not being installed etc, as the browser already knows that certificates from say Verizon are legitimate and happily accepts the connection without question, as it is already trusted. Same for other major brands of commercial certificates.
If you use a commercially available certificate & pay money for it, the organisation who issues the certificate pays big money to Microsoft & Mozilla etc to have their root certificate installed in the browser by default. That's why if you use a good quality commercial certificate on your server, then when a visitor to your site accesses https://.... , they will not be asked anything about the certificate mismatching or not being installed etc, as the browser already knows that certificates from say Verizon are legitimate and happily accepts the connection without question, as it is already trusted. Same for other major brands of commercial certificates.
If you choose to create your own certificate using one of the Howtos eg the CACert Howto, then the first time visitors access your site (https), they will still get asked to install the certificate into their browser. This is because CACert does not pay Microsoft $10,000 or more regularly to have their root certificate automatically installed in Internet Explorer (& updates which also update the root certifcate) etc. The same goes for other major brands of web browsers, although work is progressing to improve the relationship between CACert & other free certificate issuers and various web browser authors.
If you choose to create your own certificate using one of the Howtos eg the [http://wiki.contribs.org/Custom_CA_Certificate CACert Howto], then the first time visitors access your site (https), they will still get asked to install the certificate into their browser. This is because CACert does not pay Microsoft $10,000 or more regularly to have their root certificate automatically installed in Internet Explorer (& updates which also update the root certifcate) etc. The same goes for other major brands of web browsers, although work is progressing to improve the relationship between CACert & other free certificate issuers and various web browser authors.
You can refer your visitors to the CACert website and get them to install the CACert root certificate and they will no longer be questioned about the certificate on your server, as your CACert certificate is now trusted by their browser (as it has the CACert root certificate installed). You can go either way really, get users to install your CACert certificate or get them to install the CACert root certificate.
You can refer your visitors to the CACert website and get them to install the CACert root certificate and they will no longer be questioned about the certificate on your server, as your CACert certificate is now trusted by their browser (as it has the CACert root certificate installed). You can go either way really, get users to install your CACert certificate or get them to install the CACert root certificate.
Read it again carefully and slowly if it doesn't.
Read it again carefully and slowly if it doesn't.
This article is based on information given by mary in [http://forums.contribs.org/index.php/topic,42522.0.html this thread] in the contribs.org Forums.
----
----
[[Category:Howto]]
[[Category:Howto]]
