User's Guide

Chapter 16 Certificates
NWA/WAC/WAX Series User’s Guide
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• Binary PKCS#12: This is a format for transferring public key and private key certificates.The private key
in a PKCS #12 file is within a password-encrypted envelope. The file’s password is not connected to
your certificate’s public or private passwords. Exporting a PKCS #12 file creates this and you must
provide it to decrypt the contents when you import the file into the Zyxel Device.
Note: Be careful not to convert a binary file to text during the transfer process. It is easy for this
to occur since many programs use text files by default.
16.1.3 Verifying a Certificate
Before you import a trusted certificate into the Zyxel Device, you should verify that you have the correct
certificate. You can do this using the certificate’s fingerprint. A certificate’s fingerprint is a message
digest calculated using the MD5 or SHA1 algorithm. The following procedure describes how to check a
certificate’s fingerprint to verify that you have the actual certificate.
1 Browse to where you have the certificate saved on your computer.
2 Make sure that the certificate has a “.cer” or “.crt” file name extension.
3 Double-click the certificate’s icon to open the Certificate window. Click the Details tab and scroll down
to the Thumbprint Algorithm and Thumbprint fields.
4 Use a secure method to verify that the certificate owner has the same information in the Thumbprint
Algorithm and Thumbprint fields. The secure method may vary based on your situation. Possible
examples would be over the telephone or through an HTTPS connection.