Managing Certificates

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When administering the HTTPS process on Web Gateway, managing certificates is one of the most important activities.

When web traffic is going on under HTTPS using SSL-secured connections, certificates are sent from one partner in this communication to another. For example, Web Gateway sends certificates to its clients when communication is going on under HTTPS.

A certificate is sent to a communication partner to indicate that the sender can be trusted. Certificates are signed by certificate authorities (CAs) to prove that they can rightfully be trusted.

When several certificate authorities are involved in the signing, resulting in a chain of certificates with one certificate proving the trustworthiness of another, the initial certificate authority is also known as root certificate authority (root CA).

Activities performed to manage certificates include:

Replacing a root certificate authority — After the initial setup, a default root certificate authority (root CA) is provided on Web Gateway. You can replace this root CA with one that you import or create on your own.
Creating a client certificate list — You can create a list with certificates that Web Gateway can choose from when sending a certificate to a client in communication going on under HTTPS.
Managing certificates for cloud use — You can make certificates that you create or import on Web Gateway also available for cloud use.