ZyXEL Communications VSG1432-B101 Series Certificates, 20.1 Overview, 20.2 What You Need to Know, 20.1.1What You Can Do in this Chapter

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Certificates

20.1 Overview

The ZyXEL Device 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.

20.1.1What You Can Do in this Chapter

•The Local Certificates screen lets you generate certification requests and import the ZyXEL Device's CA-signed certificates (Section 20.4 on page 241).

•The Trusted CA screen lets you save the certificates of trusted CAs to the ZyXEL Device (Section 20.4 on page 241).

20.2 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 ZyXEL Device to generate certification requests that contain identifying information and public keys and then send the certification requests to a certification authority.

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VSG1432-B101 Series User’s Guide