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Obtaining an SSL Certificate

After generating a CSR and a keychain, you continue configuring mail service for automatic SSL connections by purchasing an SSL certificate from a certificate authority such as Verisign or Thawte. You can do this by completing a form on the certificate authority’s website. When prompted for your CSR, open the csr.txt file using a text editor, such as TextEdit. Then, copy and paste the contents of the file into the appropriate field on the certificate authority’s website. The websites for these certificate authorities are at:

Âwww.verisign.com

Âwww.thawte.com

When you receive your certificate, save it in a text file named sslcert.txt. You can save this file with the TextEdit application. Make sure that the file is plain text, not rich text, and that it contains only the certificate text.

Importing an SSL Certificate into the Keychain

To import an SSL certificate into a keychain, use the certtool tool. This continues the configuration of mail service for automatic SSL connections.

To import an SSL certificate into the keychain:

1Log in to the server as root.

2Open the Terminal application.

3Go to the folder where the saved certificate file is located.

For example: Enter cd /private/var/root/Desktop and press Return if the certificate file is saved on the desktop of the root user.

4Enter the following command, and then press Return:

$ certtool i sslcert.txt k=certkc

Using certtool this way imports a certificate from the file named sslcert.txt into the keychain named certkc.

A message on screen confirms that the certificate was successfully imported.

...certificate successfully imported.

Accessing the Server Certificates

Server Admin keeps a centralized store of your server’s certificates for ease of use and management. You can use certadmin to access this information from the command line. certadmin manipulates the list of certificates stored in the System keychain.

Chapter 12 Working with the Mail Service

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Apple Mac OS X Server manual Obtaining an SSL Certificate, Importing an SSL Certificate into the Keychain