A Certificate Signing Request or CSR is a formal request sent to a Certificate Authority (CA) to apply for a digital certificate.
The Certificate Signing Request CSR includes information about the entity (such as a website or organization) that is requesting the certificate and the public key that will be included in the certificate.
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Additional Information:
Key Components of a Certificate Signing Request
Common Name (CN)
The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for which the certificate is being requested. This is often the primary domain name for a website.
Organization (O)
The legal name of the organization applying for the certificate.
Organizational Unit (OU)
The specific unit or department within the organization associated with the certificate.
Locality (L)
The city or locality where the organization is located.
State or Province (ST)
The state or province where the organization is located.
Country (C)
The two-letter country code applicable to your country
Public Key
The public key generated on the server where the certificate will be installed. The public key is paired with a private key, and together they facilitate secure communication through encryption.
Key Usage
Information about how the key pair (public and private) will be used, such as for digital signatures, key encipherment, or both.
Obtaining an SSL/TLS Certificate
Obtaining an SSL/TLS certificate involves generating a CSR on the server where the certificate will be installed. After the CSR is created, it is sent to a CA for validation. The CA verifies the information in the CSR and, if everything is in order, generates a digital certificate that links the entity’s details to a public key.
The resulting digital certificate is then installed on the server and used to establish encrypted and secure communication between the server and users’ browsers. The private key, which matches the public key in the CSR, is kept confidential and safely stored on the server.
Generate a Certificate Signing Request for a Wildcard Certificate
When creating a CSR for a Wildcard certificate, it is important to include an asterisk (*) at the beginning of the common name, such as *.example.com. The Wildcard character () can be used to represent any name that does not contain a dot character.
Once you have successfully generated your CSR, you will need to copy and paste it into the relevant section of the online order form when configuring your SSL certificate.