It's the most important step in obtaining an SSL certificate. The Certificate Signing Request (CSR) contains information about your organization and the domain you wish to secure. Unless you have direct access to your web server, the CSR is normally generated for you by your hosting provider. Some control panels (Ensim, Plesk, CPanel) will allow you to generate your own CSR if your hosting provider has enabled that feature for you.
Each and every CSR generated is UNIQUE. The CSR you use must be generated for your domain on the server where your domain is hosted.
The Common Name (CN) should be whatever your site users will see in their browser when they navigate to a secure page. Here are some examples:
Common Name (CN) Examples:•
www.mydomain.com• secure.mydomain.com
• mail.mydomain.com
• mydomain.com
• checkout.mydomain.com
• sales.mydomain.com
Should I use a www in my Common Name? This depends on what your site users will see in their browser address bar. If your users will see
https://www.domain.com then you should use a
www.domain.com in your CSR. The key is that what your users see and what you're trying to secure must match exactly. Do not use http:// or https://
What do I do once I have a CSR? Keep it in a safe place until you're ready to purchase your Geotrust SSL certificate. The CSR will be needed during the purchase process. You'll be asked to copy-and-paste your CSR into a special CSR box.
What should I include when I paste my CSR? Everything!
Notice the beginning -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
and ending -----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----.
These must be included when you paste your CSR into the CSR box.
