What format does NetScaler use for certificates?

A NetScaler appliance supports the PEM and DER formats for SSL certificates.

How do I upload an SSL certificate to NetScaler?

On the NetScaler > Traffic Management > SSL page, under Tools, click Manage Certificates / Keys / CSRs. In the Manage Certificates / Keys / CSRs window, click Upload to locate, select, and upload your SSL Certificate . pem file (i.e. yourdomain_com. pem).

What is the SSL certificate format?

All SSL certificates are x. 509 certificates . This is the standard format of public-key certificates expressed in a formal language called Abstract Syntax Notation One.

How many types of SSL certificates are there?

There are three types of SSL Certificate available today; Extended Validation (EV SSL), Organization Validated (OV SSL) and Domain Validated (DV SSL). The encryption levels are the same for each certificate, what differs is the vetting and verification processes needed to obtain the certificate.

Which certificate format is used with the load balancer?

If you use HTTPS (SSL or TLS) for your front-end listener, you must deploy an SSL/TLS certificate on your load balancer. The load balancer uses the certificate to terminate the connection and then decrypt requests from clients before sending them to the instances.

Where are NetScaler SSL certificates stored?

All the certificate and key files are in nsconfig/ssl directory . Certificates from NetScaler can be obtained by use of WinScp. Open a command line interface and change the directory to the location of the OpenSSL executable (in <drive>:\openssl\bin by default). - yourcertifcatename.

PEM and PFX files are two of the most commonly used file formats for storing digital certificates, private keys, and other cryptographic information .

What are standard certificate formats?

There are different formats of X. 509 certificates such as PEM, DER, PKCS#7 and PKCS#12 . PEM and PKCS#7 formats use Base64 ASCII encoding while DER and PKCS#12 use binary encoding. The certificate files have different extensions based on the format and encoding they use.

What are the three types of certification?

There are three general types of certification. Listed in order of development level and portability, they are: corporate (internal), product-specific, and profession-wide . Corporate, or "internal" certifications, are made by a corporation or low-stakes organization for internal purposes.

Which type of SSL certificate is best?

Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates provide the highest level of trust and are the industry standard for eCommerce websites.

What format is OpenSSL certificate output?

DESCRIPTION. Several OpenSSL commands can take input or generate output in a variety of formats. Since OpenSSL 3.0 keys, single certificates, and CRLs can be read from files in any of the DER, PEM or P12 formats.

What is the format of certificate in pkcs7?

P7B/PKCS#7 Format Certificates in P7B/PKCS#7 formats are encoded in Base64 ASCII encoding and they usually have . p7b or . p7c as the file extension. The thing that separates PKCS#7 formatted certificates is that only certificates can be stored in this format, not private keys.

What format is NetScaler log?

The NetScaler supports the following standard log file formats: NCSA Common Log Format . W3C Extended Log Format .

What are the different formats of SSL certificates and how we can upload a certificate to NetScaler (2024)

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Objective

This article explains the different formats of the SSL certificates and demonstrates how to upload the certificates to NetScaler.

Use Case

Ramesh wants to communicate in a secure manner using certificates provided by different Certificate Authorities(CA) which can be of different formats(PEM, DER, PFX). Ramesh should be able to use these certificates of different format for his secure communication.

Secure communication is one of the important requirements for enterprises and telcos, where they want to provide their customers/users with safe, secure environment.

However there are many culprits with malice intentions to steal your identity which can lead to a fortune for them and can be destructive for the users who lost their identity. To prevent this, certificates are used for security and identification. A certificate is an electronic document that contains data fields. If you were to compare a digital certificate with a traditional physical certificate, you will find many similarities. In a traditional certificate, say for e.g. a college degree certificate, we can see who has issued the certificate and to whom it was issued and can use it. Similarly a digital certificate will contain information on who issued the certificate and who can use this certificate.

Additionally a certificate contains validity information, indicating the period for which the certificate is valid, a public key and a digital signature which is just like a wax seal on the traditional physical certificate.

There are many well recognized Certificate Authorities(CA) who can issue certificates. Some of the well- known certificate authorities are Verisign, GoDaddy, GlobalSign, Digicert, StartCom, Trustwave, Secom etc. These Certificate Authorities can issue certificate in the below mentioned formats,

PEM - Privacy Enhanced Mail
DER - Distinguished Encoding Rule
PFX - Personal Information Exchange

Instructions

Formats and description of each format

PEM Format
DER Format
PKCS#7
PFX Format (PKCS#12)

PEM Format

PEM is the most common format in which Certificate Authorities (CA) issue certificates. These are more widely used by Unix/Linux users.
If you see "Proc-type" present in a PEM format certificate it means that it is encrypted and these are called as base-64 encoded DER certificates.
The public part of the certificate will be represented in“—–BEGIN PUBLIC KEY—–” and “—–END PUBLIC KEY—–“
Whereas the private part of the certificate will be represented in“—–BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY—–” and “—–END RSA PRIVATE KEY—–“.
PEM format can contain any or all of the client/server certificate, intermediate certificate, root CA and the private key.

They are Base64 encoded ASCII files
They have extensions such as .pem, .crt, .cer, .key
Apache and similar servers uses PEM format certificates

DER Format

DER is a Binary form of ASCII PEM format certificate. All types of Certificates & Private Keys can be encoded in DER format.
This format supports storage of single certificate and does not include private key for the intermediate/root CA.

They are Binary format files
They have extensions .cer and .der

DER is typically used in Java platform

PKCS#7

This format contains only certificate or certificate chain but does not store the private key.
This format is usually used by CA's to provide certificate chains to users.

PFX Format (PKCS#12)

PFX is a format for storing a server certificate or any intermediate certificate along with private key in one encrypted file. PFX follows Public Key Cryptography Standard(PKCS). The term PFX is used interchangeably with PKCS#12.
To upload PFX files on NetScaler, refer to guide: How do I upload PFX certificates on NetScaler?

Steps to import PEM/DER certificate on NetScaler

Steps to import PEM and DER certificates are the same. The following steps has to be followed to use PEM/DER certificates on NetScaler.

Step1: Navigate to Configuration -> SSL -> Certificates

Step2: Install Certificate

Certificate-Key Pair Name indicates the name to be used for the certificate
Certificate File Name indicates the name of the certificate received from CA and uploaded by

the administrator
Key File Name is the name of the public key generated along with the certificate and uploaded

by the administrator

If the certificate and key are in the same file, then same file has to be uploaded in Certificate File Name and Key File Name for it to be used. PFX files with certificate and key in the same file can be handled in the same way.