How to Generate a CSR for Covalent Apache ERS v3.0 or Above

You will need to create a key pair for your server to generate a CSR. These two items are a digital certificate key pair and must not be separated. Losing your public/private key file or password will result in you havinf to generate a new one, causing your SSL Certificate to no longer match. You will have to order a new SSL Certificate and which may result in a charge.

Step 1: Generate a Key Pair

Use the utility "openssl" to generate the key and CSR. This utility comes with the OpenSSL package. You usually install it under/usr/local/ssl/bin. If it is installed elsewhere, adjust the directory used in these instructions.

  • Change directory to your SSL Key directory: cd /usr/local/ssl/private
  • Generate a Private key using the following command: openssl genrsa -des3 2048 > verisign.key

Step 2: Generate a CSR

1. Change directory to your SSL Certificate directory: cd /usr/local/ssl/crt

2. Generate a CSR using the following command:  
 
openssl req -new -key ../private/ verisign.key > verisign.csr

This step will create the X.509 attributes of the certificate:

Country Name (C): Use the two-letter code without punctuation for country, for example: US or CA. 
State or Province (S): Spell out the state completely; do not abbreviate the state or province name, for example: California 
Locality or City (L): The Locality field is the city or town name, for example: Berkeley. Do not abbreviate. For example: Saint Louis, not St. Louis.
Organization (O): If your company or department has an &, @, or any other symbol using the shift key in its name, you must spell out the symbol or omit it to enroll. Example: XY & Z Corporation would be XYZ Corporation or XY and Z Corporation.
Organizational Unit (OU): This field is optional; but can be used to help identify certificates registered to an organization. The Organizational Unit (OU) field is the name of the department or organization unit making the request. 
Common Name (CN): The Common Name is the Host + Domain Name. It looks like "www.company.com" or "company.com".

Note: SSL certificates can only be used on Web servers using the Common Name specified during enrollment. For example, a certificate for the domain "domain.com" will receive a warning if accessing a site named "www.domain.com" or "secure.domain.com", because "www.domain.com" and "secure.domain.com" are different from "domain.com".

Please do not enter your email address, challenge password or an optional company name when generating the CSR.

3. Verify your CSR

4. Open the file in a text editor that does not add extra characters (Notepad or vi are recommended).


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