Certificate Signing Request (CSR) - Overview

May 10, 2024

Introduction

A certificate signing request (CSR) is a message sent to a certificate authority to request the signing of a public key and associated information. Most commonly a CSR will be in a PKCS10 format. The contents of a CSR comprises a public key, as well as a common name, organization, city, state, country, and e-mail. Not all of these fields are required and will vary depending with the assurance level of your certificate. Together these fields make up the Certificate Signing Request (CSR).

The CSR is signed by the applicant's private key; this proves to the CA that the applicant has control of the private key that corresponds to the public key included in the CSR. Once the requested information in a CSR passes a vetting process and domain control is established, the CA may sign the applicant's public key so that it can be publicly trusted.

Before you can order an SSL Certificate, you will need to generate a CSR. The process for generating a CSR varies from platform to platform. Some will use a command line, others will walk through a GUI-based wizard.

Resources for Generating CSRs:
Apache Azure Key Vault cPanel Cisco ASA 5500 Exchange 2003 Exchange 2007 Exchange 2010 F5 (IIS) 5 & 6 IIS 7/8 IIS 10 Java Keytool (Tomcat & other Java-based servers) Lotus Domino 8.5 OpenSSL (Use for Apache & NGINX) Oracle Wallet Manager Plesk SonicWall Windows Server 2008+

Resources for Generating CSRs:

Java Keytool (Tomcat & other Java-based servers)