Hi Chris, how are you installing the root CA on the client machines? In windows once you double click the root certificate you get a message dialog box and click the install certificate button. On the following screen press next and on the next screen tell it to install the certificate to the Trusted Root Certificate Authorities, hit next then finish. You should get a Windows dialog warning saying that you are adding a root certificate, and you just say yes.
Now the other possible problem is that on the server certificate that you created you aren't including the Authority Information Access (AIA) field. This is crucial so that your customers only have to install the root CA and implicitly trust any certificates signed by the root. On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 2:29 PM, Chris Rider < chris.ri...@messagenetsystems.com> wrote: > We have a client/server architecture based product that needs to allow SSL > communication between our server (CentOS) and various clients' web browsers > (and additionally, other devices, but that's beyond the scope of this post). > > We've been able to get SSL working in both of two different ways > (self-signed certificate & self-signed CA with certificates signed by that) > -- so that is not the issue. Rather, our whole issue is that we don't want > the end-users to confronted with a big scary browser message that says > something akin to "There's a Problem With Security! / Allow Exception, etc." > If they must install a certificate or two, that would be acceptable, though. > So I thought that creating my own CA to sign certificates with would be a > solution.... apparently not. I'm now getting browser messages that say the > certificate's issuer is not trusted!!! Very frustrating. > > So, as I said, I've created my own CA (using this link as a guide: > http://www.g-loaded.eu/2005/11/10/be-your-own-ca/ ), and can sign my own > certificates without problem. I then install the root certificate, followed > by a server certificate signed by that CA. And, while I can click "allow > exception" in the browser to make it all work, that is not the desired way. > We just want to be able to have the end-user install a trusted root > certificate and everything just work from there. Testing in IE and FireFox > nets the same big scary warning message, no matter what combination of > fields I use in the CSR, etc. > > We really don't want to go with a third party CA like VeriSign, for example > -- not so much because of the cost, but we just don't want to deal with > updating countless remote installations of our product whenever the > certificate expires. Not to mention the support that would be associated > with doing that! The other issue is that some/most of these installations do > not have outside internet connectivity with which to query the CA's (for > CRL's, or whatever). We really need to manage our own certificates, all in > all.... but without these warning messages. > > Is it possible? > If so, what am I missing? > > -- > Chris Rider, > Systems Architect > MessageNet Systems > ______________________________________________________________________ > OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org > User Support Mailing List openssl-users@openssl.org > Automated List Manager majord...@openssl.org >
