Nortel Networks 4050 manual Creating certificates, Installing certificates and keys

Chapter 11 Managing certificates 573

Creating certificates

The basic steps to create a new certificate are:

1Generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) (see “Generating and submitting a CSR using the CLI” on page 579 or “Generating and submitting a CSR using the SREM” on page 601).

2Send the CSR to a Certificate Authority (CA), such as Entrust or VeriSign, for certification (see “Generating and submitting a CSR using the CLI” on page 579 or “Generating and submitting a CSR using the SREM” on

page 601).

3Install the signed certificate on the Nortel SNAS 4050 cluster (see “Installing certificates and keys” on page 573).

4Map the installed certificate to the Nortel SNAS 4050 portal server (see “Configuring SSL settings using the CLI” on page 139 or “Configuring SSL settings using the SREM” on page 176).

Installing certificates and keys

There are two ways to install a certificate and key in the Nortel SNAS 4050 cluster:

•by pasting (see “Adding a certificate to the Nortel SNAS 4050 using the CLI” on page 584)

•by importing from a TFTP/FTP/SCP/SFTP server (see “Importing certificates and keys into the Nortel SNAS 4050 using the CLI” on page 588 or “Importing a certificate or key using the SREM” on page 603)

When you generate the CSR, the private key is created and stored in encrypted form on the Nortel SNAS 4050 using the specified certificate number. After you receive the certificate, which contains the corresponding public key, use the same certificate number when you add the certificate to the Nortel SNAS 4050. Otherwise, the private key and the public key in the certificate will not match.

If you do not generate a CSR but obtain the certificate by other means, you must take additional steps to add a private key that corresponds to the public key of the certificate (see “Adding a private key to the Nortel SNAS 4050 using the CLI” on page 587).

Nortel Secure Network Access Switch 4050 User Guide