D

Importing Certificates

This appendix shows you how to import public key certificates into your web browser.

Public key certificates are used by web browsers to ensure that a secure web site is legitimate. When a certificate authority such as VeriSign, Comodo, or Network Solutions, to name a few, receives a certificate request from a website operator, they confirm that the web domain and contact information in the request match those on public record with a domain name registrar. If they match, then the certificate is issued to the website operator, who then places it on the site to be issued to all visiting web browsers to let them know that the site is legitimate.

Many ZyXEL products, such as the NSA-2401, issue their own public key certificates. These can be used by web browsers on a LAN or WAN to verify that they are in fact connecting to the legitimate device and not one masquerading as it. However, because the certificates were not issued by one of the several organizations officially recognized by the most common web browsers, you will need to import the ZyXEL-created certificate into your web browser and flag that certificate as a trusted authority.

Note: You can see if you are browsing on a secure website if the URL in your web browser’s address bar begins with https:// or there is a sealed padlock icon ( ) somewhere in the main browser window (not all browsers show the padlock in the same location.)

In this appendix, you can import a public key certificate for:

•Internet Explorer on page 343

•Firefox on page 352

•Opera on page 357

•Konqueror on page 364

Internet Explorer

The following example uses Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP Professional; however, they can also apply to Internet Explorer on Windows Vista.

 

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NWA-3500/NWA-3550 User’s Guide