Slicehost - How do I generate a CSR so that I can purchase a Thawte SSL cert?

Question

I am in the process of purchasing a Thawte SSL cert to be applied to my slice on slicehost which is hosting my new web app. Thawte is looking for a CSR. How do i generate this?

Regards, Fiona

Answer 1

I doubt you still need this info after 9 months, however...

You'll need to generate an OpenSSL keypair and a Certificate Signing Request.

The keypair consists of two cryptographic keys. A public and private. The public key is included with the CSR along with other applicant information such as name, company, etc. The private key is used to sign the CSR request.

A CSR is what you send to your chosen Certificate Authority (CA) to request that they supply you with an SSL certificate. It includes your identifying information and the public key for your server/site.

Generate the CSR

openssl req -new -newkey rsa:1024 -nodes -keyout example.key -out example.csr

You’ll be prompted to enter information such as Common Name, Organisation, Country etc.

It should be fairly straight forward, but your CA will let you know if you’ve done it wrong, I’m sure.

This will create example.key (the private key) and example.csr (the CSR).

Requesting your certificate

Normally your CA will have a form on their website which allows you to paste in your CSR. This obviously varies from company to company. Once you have given them your CSR, they will first ask you for money, and then generate your CRT file.

P.S. I basically copy and pasted this info from my website, dunno if that's allowed here.