Generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) -
Covalent Apache ERS v 3.0 and above

To generate a CSR, you first need to create a key pair for your server. These two items are a digital certificate key pair and cannot be separated. If you lose your public/private key file or your password and generate a new one, your SSL Certificate will no longer match your private key. You will have to request a new SSL Certificate.

We recommend that you contact Covalent for additional information.

Generate Keypair and CSR

Step 1: Generate a Key Pair

Note: The recommended key bit size is 2048-bit. All certificates that will expire after December 31, 2013 must have a 2048 bit key size

Use the utility “openssl” to generate the key and CSR. This utility comes with the OpenSSL package. You usually install it under /usr/local/ssl/bin. If it is installed elsewhere, adjust the directory used in these instructions.

• Change directory to your SSL Key directory: cd /usr/local/ssl/private
• Generate a Private key using the following command: openssl genrsa -des3 2048 > verisign.key
Note: For Extended Validation certificates the key bit length must be 2048.

Step 2: Generate a CSR

1. Change directory to your SSL Certificate directory: cd /usr/local/ssl/crt
2. Generate a CSR using the following command:
   

   openssl req -new -key ../private/ verisign.key > verisign.csr
   
   This step will create the X.509 attributes of the certificate:
   
   Country Name (C): Use the two-letter code without punctuation for country, for example: US or CA.
   State or Province (S): Spell out the state completely; do not abbreviate the state or province name, for example: California
   Locality or City (L): The Locality field is the city or town name, for example: Berkeley. Do not abbreviate. For example: Saint Louis, not St. Louis.
   Organization (O): If your company or department has an &, @, or any other symbol using the shift key in its name, you must spell out the symbol or omit it to enroll. Example: XY & Z Corporation would be XYZ Corporation or XY and Z Corporation.
   Organizational Unit (OU): This field is optional; but can be used to help identify certificates registered to an organization. The Organizational Unit (OU) field is the name of the department or organization unit making the request.
   Common Name (CN): The Common Name is the Host + Domain Name. It looks like "www.company.com" or "company.com".
   
   Note: SSL certificates can only be used on Web servers using the Common Name specified during enrollment. For example, a certificate for the domain "domain.com" will receive a warning if accessing a site named "www.domain.com" or "secure.domain.com", because "www.domain.com" and "secure.domain.com" are different from "domain.com".
   
   Please do not enter your email address, challenge password or an optional company name when generating the CSR.
   
   

3. Open the file in a text editor that does not add extra characters (Notepad or vi are recommended).
4. Copy all of the text.
5. Go to the enrollment and paste the information into the form when prompted for the CSR.