Secure Global Desktop Administration Guide > Security > Obtaining and installing an X.509 certificate

Obtaining and installing an X.509 certificate

Problem

You want to obtain and install an X.509 certificate for use with Secure Global Desktop security services.

Solution

Use the tarantella security certrequest command to generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) for the Secure Global Desktop host. Then send the CSR to a supported Certificate Authority, which will return a certificate for you to install on that host.

Alternatives

• If you already have a certificate for another application, such as a web server, you may be able to share that certificate with the Secure Global Desktop server.

Case study

Indigo Insurance, based in Massachusetts, USA, wants to obtain an X.509 certificate for a Secure Global Desktop server.

Solution

1. On the Secure Global Desktop host, use tarantella security certrequest to generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR):

   tarantella security certrequest \
     --country US \
     --state Massachusetts \
     --orgname "Indigo Insurance"  

2. Send the CSR to a supported Certificate Authority.
3. Copy the returned certificate to a temporary file (for example, /tmp/cert), then type the following command to install it:

   tarantella security certuse < /tmp/cert 

Next steps

• Once you've installed the X.509 certificate, you can enable secure connections with the tarantella security start command.
• There are important security considerations regarding X.509 certificates and user prompts.

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