Ed Kasky wrote:
>
> Being new at ssl - bear with me if I screw this up:
>
> I just installed ssl capabilities onto a RH 6.1 box with Webmin 0.86.
>
> When I connect to the machine via https://host:10000
>
> I get a message saying that
> - The security certificate is from a trusted certifying authority.
I wonder why the CA is trusted, because this should only the case
if the CA is already known to your browser, and i know no
CA which is willing to sign a certificate for hostname "*".
> - the security certificate date is valid.
> - The name on the security certificate does not match the
> name on the site.
I assume you are using MSIE for some reason :-),
My experiences with MSIE are that MSIE does
not recognice wild card certificates. The default SSL certificate
for webmin is a self signed Ceritificate with a Common Name of "*",
so it will match every hostname. Netscape handles this syntax
correctly. Also Netscape can handle constructs like this
(www|mail).domain.com as the common name, so you can access the same
server with
both names http://www.domain.com or mail.domain.com, MSIE will complain.
But nevertheless a certificate which does not reflect the original
hostname may only be a temporary solution. Take yourself some time
to learn how to setup a Certifcation Authority by yourself or buy
some certificate from Verisign or Thawte. Those certificates must
be renewed yearly otherwise your browsers will complain again that
the certificate is expired :-).
For a intranet or extranet with limited external users it may be
feasible to use a self generated CA Certificate with a lifetime
of 5 to 10 years to sign all server certificates with, so you do
not have to fiddle with each new certificate to be accepted by
the browsers used, only your CA certificate has to be known by the
browser.
Also instruct users not to click always on "OK" or "Continue" if
there are complaints about certificates, this opens a big hole for
"men in the middle" attacks. But as it is always, the users are the
biggest security risks sometimes :-).
>
> I click yes to proceed and all goes well - but how do I fix the name on the
> certificate so that it matches the name of the site?
>
> Thanks in advance....
>
> Ed
> ~~
> Ed Kasky
> Los Angeles, CA
> . . . . . . . .
> Minds are like parachutes. They work best when open.
>
> -
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--
Robert Bossecker | Fresenius AG, Bad Homburg, Germany
UNIX-Systemmanager| Phone: +49 6172 608 7677
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