Switched Rack PDU
USER’S GUIDE
®
Method 3: Use the APC Security Wizard to create a
request to be signed by the root certificate of an external Certificate Authority and to create a server certificate. Use the APC Security Wizard to create a request (a .csr file) to send to a Certificate Authority. The Certificate Authority returns a signed certificate (a .crt file) based on information you submitted in your request. You then use the APC Security Wizard to create a server certificate (a .p15 file) that includes the signature from the root certificate returned by the Certificate Authority. Upload the server certificate to the Rack PDU.
You can also use Method 3 if your company or agency operates its own Certificate Authority, Use the APC Security Wizard in the same way, but use your own Certificate Authority in place of a
commercial Certificate Authority.
This method has the following advantages and disadvantages.
•Advantages:
–Before they are transmitted, the user name and password for Rack PDU access and all data to and from the Rack PDU are encrypted.
–You have the benefit of authentication by a Certificate Authority that already has a signed root certificate in the certificate cache of the browser. (The CA certificates of commercial Certificate Authorities are distributed as part of the browser software, and a Certificate Authority of your own company or agency has probably already loaded its CA certificate to the browser store of each user’s browser.) Therefore, you do not have to upload a root certificate to the browser of each user who needs access to the Rack PDU.
–The length of the public key (RSA key) that is used for setting up an SSL session is 1024 bits, providing more complex encryption and consequently a higher level of security than the public key used in Method 1. (This longer encryption key is also used in Method 2.)
