14

Certificate

14.1 Overview

The P-2812HNU-51c can use certificates (also called digital IDs) to authenticate users. Certificates are based on public-private key pairs. A certificate contains the certificate owner’s identity and public key. Certificates provide a way to exchange public keys for use in authentication.

14.1.1What You Can Do in this Chapter

•The Local Certificates screen lets you generate certification requests and import the P-2812HNU-51c's CA-signed certificates (Section 14.4 on page 289).

•The Trusted CA screen lets you save the certificates of trusted CAs to the P- 2812HNU-51c (Section 14.4 on page 289).

14.2 What You Need to Know

The following terms and concepts may help as you read through this chapter.

Certification Authority

A Certification Authority (CA) issues certificates and guarantees the identity of each certificate owner. There are commercial certification authorities like CyberTrust or VeriSign and government certification authorities. The certification authority uses its private key to sign certificates. Anyone can then use the certification authority's public key to verify the certificates. You can use the P- 2812HNU-51c to generate certification requests that contain identifying information and public keys and then send the certification requests to a certification authority.

Certificate File Format

The certification authority certificate that you want to import has to be in one of these file formats:

 

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