HP LaserJet Enterprise MFP - CA Certificates for commercial Email services (white paper)

Appendix 2: Certificate Validation

A certificate, whether CA or Identity, consists of a number of plain text fields that are user-

readable, and a few mathematical items that are readable, but nonsensical to normal users.

This document provides information about the Subject and Issuer fields; the Valid from and

Valid to fields are of secondary interest. It will also provide information of the Public Key and

the Private Key mathematical encryption objects.

In an identity certificate, the Subject field identifies the entity to which the certificate was

issued and the Issuer field identifies the Certificate Authority that issued the certificate.

Though the contents of both the Issuer and Subject fields are arbitrary strings, generally

speaking, a URL is used for the Subject while the name of the certificate authority is used in the

Issuer.

Here is a partial view of a sample identity certificate:

Figure 8: Certificate Details - Valid from and Valid to fields