Installation guide

144 Chapter 14. Apache Secure Server Configuration
Type in the password that you chose when you were generating your key. Your system will
display some instructions and then ask for a series of responses from you. Your inputs will
be incorporated into the certificate request. The display, with example responses, will look
like this:
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a
DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter ’.’, the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:North Carolina
Locality Name (eg, city) []:Durham
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits]:Test Company
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Testing
Common Name (your name or server’s hostname) []:test.example.com
Email Address []:[e-mail]
Please enter the following ’extra’ attributes
to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:
An optional company name []:
The default answers appear in brackets [] immediately after each request for input. For
example, the first information required is the name of the country where the certificate will
be used, shown like the following:
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:
The default input, in brackets, is AU. To accept the default, just press [Enter], or fill in your
country’s two letter code.
You will have to type in the rest of the inputs (State or Province Name, Locality Name,
Organization Name, Organizational Unit Name, Common Name, and Email address).
All of these should be self-explanatory, but you need to follow these guidelines:
• Do not abbreviate the locality or state. Write them out (for example, St. Louis should be
written out as Saint Louis).
• If you are sending this CSR to a CA, be very careful to provide correct information for
all of the fields, but especially for the Organization Name and the Common Name. CAs
check the information provided in the CSR to determine whether your organization is re-
sponsible for what you provided as the Common Name. CAs will reject CSRs which include
information they perceive as invalid.
• For Common Name, make sure you type in the real name of your secure Web server (a valid
DNS name) and not any aliases which the server may have.
• The Email Address should be the email address for the webmaster or system administra-
tor.
• Avoid any special characters like @, #, &, !, etc. Some CAs will reject a certificate request
which contains a special character. So, if your company name includes an ampersand (&),
spell it out as "and" instead of "&."