CSR Generation Instructions- Tomcat

To generate a CSR, you will need to create a key pair for your server. These two items are a digital certificate key pair and cannot be separated. If you lose your public/private key file or your password and generate a new one, your SSL Certificate will no longer match. You will have to request a new SSL Certificate and may be charged.

Step 1: Generate the Keystore and Private Key

Please use JDK 1.3.1 or later.

1. Create a certificate keystore and private key by executing the following command:

Unix: $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -genkey -alias -keyalg RSA -keystore

This command will prompt for the following 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.
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: XYZ 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: When prompted for your "first- and lastname", enter the desired Common Name.

VeriSign 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".

2. Specify a password. The default value will be "changeit".

For further information, please refer to the Tomcat Web site.

Step 2: Generate a CSR

1. The CSR is then created using the following command:

keytool -certreq -keyalg RSA -alias -file certreq.csr -keystore

2. To copy and paste the file certreq.csr into the enrollment form, open the file in a text editor that does not add extra characters (Notepad or Vi are recommended).

Contact Information

During the verification process, VeriSign may need to contact your organization. Be sure to provide an email address, phone number, and fax number that will be checked and responded to quickly. These fields are not part of the certificate.