CSR Generation Instruction - Qpopper

An Important Note Before You Start

By far the most common problem users have when going through this process is related to private keys. If you lose or cannot access a private key, you cannot use the certificate we issue to you and will need to request a free reissue. To ensure this never happens, we advise that a backup of the private key file is made and that a note is made of the password that is used to protect the export of the private key.

To create a certificate signed by a Certificate Authority using OpenSSL, follow these steps:

Create or choose a directory for the certificates and your private key. Because the private key is stored unencrypted, it is very important that only user root has access to this directory. For example, the following three commands:

mkdir -p -m665 /etc/mail/certs

chown root:mail /etc/mail/certs

chmod 660 /etc/mail/certs

Use openssl to create a public-private key pair and a certificate signing request (csa). For example, the following command (this text should be entered at a command prompt as one long line):

/usr/local/ssl/bin/openssl req -new -nodes -out req.pem -keyout /etc/mail/certs/cert.pem

When you run openssl it prompts you for items of information. It is very important that you properly answer these prompts; the default explanation may not be accurate. It asks you:

Country Name Supply the ISO-standard two-letter code for your country.

State or Province Name Type the full name of your state or province.

Locality Name Type the full name of your city or municipal area.

Organization Name Type the legal name of your company or organization.

Organizational Unit Name Type the name of your division or section of your company.

Common Name Type the fully-qualified host name of the mail server host. Do not type your personal name, even if the openssl prompt sounds like that is what you should do. This must be the same name that a client enters to get to your server.

Email Address This should be your email address, or that of an institutional role (such as postmaster).

Ensure that the file which now contains the private key (and will later contain the signed certificate) is owned by and only accessible by root. For example, the following two commands:

chmod 600 /etc/mail/certs/cert.pem

chown root:0 /etc/mail/certs/cert.pem

Send the certificate signing request (file req.pem) to your Certificate Authority for signing. You will receive back a signed request.

Start the certificate request process

To submit the CSR to WoSign for processing you should start the certificate enrollment process.