User`s guide

ericom D1000 modem User’s Guide 167
CHAPTER 15
Certificates
15.1 Overview
The Device can use certificates (also called digital IDs) to authenticate users. Certificates are based
on public-private key pairs. A certificate contains the certificate owner’s identity and public key.
Certificates provide a way to exchange public keys for use in authentication.
15.1.1 What You Can Do in this Chapter
•Use the Local Certificates screen to view and import the Device’s CA-signed certificates
(Section 15.3 on page 167).
•The Trusted CA screen lets you save the certificates of trusted CAs to the Device (Section 15.4
on page 169).
15.2 What You Need to Know
The following terms and concepts may help as you read through this chapter.
Certification Authority
A Certification Authority (CA) issues certificates and guarantees the identity of each certificate
owner. There are commercial certification authorities like CyberTrust or VeriSign and government
certification authorities. The certification authority uses its private key to sign certificates. Anyone
can then use the certification authority's public key to verify the certificates. You can use the Device
to generate certification requests that contain identifying information and public keys and then send
the certification requests to a certification authority.
Certificate File Format
The certification authority certificate that you want to import has to be in one of these file formats:
• PEM (Base-64) encoded X.509: This Privacy Enhanced Mail format uses 64 ASCII characters to
convert a binary X.509 certificate into a printable form.
15.3 Local Certificates
Use this screen to view the Device’s summary list of certificates and certification requests. You can
import the following certificates to your Device: