[Pugged] SSL options and providers

[Steve Langasek]

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On Mon, Sep 23, 2002 at 04:08:01PM -0500, Chris Hettinger wrote:
> That is one area I am not sure about... When you buy a certificate,
> what am I getting. I purchase the certificate, they issue me, what...
> this public key? ... Is there the something I need to give to my
> hosting provider for the server? I am a newb on this topic. I have read
> on some of these sites the white papers / tech notes on what it does
> and all but I havn't seen something to explain what I get and
> require...

The public key is yours, you don't need to pay for that; it's encoded in
the certificate signing request that you send to the CA.  What the CA
issues you, and what you're paying for, is a signature affirming that
your public key belongs to the person you claim to be.  It's the
guarantee that no one has intercepted your SSL traffic between your
server and the browser, substituting their own SSL key for yours.

As for what you need to give the hosting provider, all you should need to
give them is the certificate issued by the CA.  (They already have the
private key, right?  Because you weren't planning on sending a private
key to your hosting provider in email, right? :)

Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

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