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Legacy Forums => Experienced User Forum => Topic started by: Paul Risbey on March 25, 2002, 10:59:20 AM

Title: Root Certificates
Post by: Paul Risbey on March 25, 2002, 10:59:20 AM

I would like to know if e-smith or any other linux based program has the ability to operate as a Root Certificate Authority Server and issue certificates that are recognised in a windows domain

Title: Re: Root Certificates
Post by: Dan Brown on March 25, 2002, 06:24:23 PM

Being a root CA is completely independent from the Windoze domain model, and the only ones that can operate as a root CA with stock Windoze (or Mac, or just about anything else) are Verisign, Thawte, Equifax, etc.  It's a matter of having the appropriate signing key.  If you generate a CA certificate and import it into all the machines on your network (the former is easy; the latter may not be depending on how many machines you have), then your SME box can act as a root CA.  It's all a matter of whether the client machines recognize the cert.

Unfortunately, SME at this point doesn't come with any decent tools to manage this--I don't know of any that are available, actually, though there must be some somewhere.