SSL on Mac OS X Server 10.5.4

Question

Level 1

47 points

SSL on Mac OS X Server 10.5.4

I'm also quite confused with all this SSL certificate business on Mac OS X Server 10.5.4 now.

We ran a test environment on a self-signed certificate for months. We instructed test users to ignore the insecure certificate warning when logging on for wiki, ichat, etc. Test users on Macs, we were able to simply force-trust the self-signed certificate to rid of the warning message every time they log on.

Eventually, the company purchased a Verisign-signed certificate. We received a cert.cer file, which contained the CSR code. We were under the impression that we could simply select the current self-signed certificate created on Mac OS X Server and use the "Add Signed or Renewed Certificate from Certificate Authority..." function to import the Verisign CSR code to our existing certificate. Well, to sum it up, nothing worked.

The certificate is still self-signed. We repeated the same steps a few more times. On a few runs, the original certificate simply disappears from the list. Interesting...

Some info that I found on Verisign's own site: HERE

Any ideas?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.4), Mac OS X Server 10.5.4

Posted on Aug 6, 2008 10:47 PM

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Answer 1

John Chen Author

Level 1

47 points

Aug 7, 2008 5:52 AM in response to John Chen

I was able to locate the following files in on the server:
-domain.name.net.crt
-domain.name.net.csr
-domain.name.net.crtkey
-domain.name.net.key

Can I just use the import certificate function in Server Admin with those files? I have tried, but didn't work. Anyone? Thanks!

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Answer 2

Paul Vail

Level 1

144 points

Aug 7, 2008 5:42 PM in response to John Chen

Is there a reason you feel the need to go with Verisign? They are awfully proud of their product, and it is really no better than something from servertastic.com or other vendors. Self-signed will always bite you in the end when just one user fusses about 'it said it wasn't legit' -- regardless of the function the cert serves for your needs. But Verisign? Ick.

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Answer 3

Sep 4, 2008 9:08 PM in response to John Chen

Hi John,

I am having the exact same issue. Did you resolve this in the end? If so, what was the process?

Regards,
Kieran

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Answer 4

djton

Level 1

10 points

Oct 21, 2008 12:54 PM in response to Kieran Bailey

Same issue here. I even tried to import the cert directly into keychain. I did get the certificate to show up in server admin with the correct signed info, but when I assigned a service to the cert. It actually was handing out the old unsigned cert, so I removed it to try again. Now I cannot get the cert back in server admin at all, just in Keychain under SYSTEM. The self-signed certs only show up under My Keychains... It appears also that Server Admin will only see the certs that are located in MyKeychains. Anyone have any luck?

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