The Administrator's Guide explains how to administer Netscape Certificate Management System (CMS). It assumes that you have read the installation documentation and have successfully installed Certificate Management System.

• What's in This Guide
• Who Should Read This Guide
• What You Should Already Know
• Conventions Used in This Guide
• Where to Go for Related Information

This guide explains how to configure, customize, and maintain Certificate Management System, and use it for issuing and managing certificates to various end entities, such as web browsers (users), servers, Virtual Private Network (VPN) clients, and Cisco routers.

This guide is intended for Certificate Management System administrators.

This guide assumes that you

• Are familiar with the basic concepts of public-key cryptography and the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
• SSL cipher suites
• The purpose of and major steps in the SSL handshake

• Understand the concepts of intranet, extranet, and the Internet security and the role of digital certificates in a secure enterprise. These include the following topics:
• Encryption and decryption
• Public keys, private keys, and symmetric keys
• Significance of key lengths
• Digital signatures
• Digital certificates, including various types of digital certificates
• The role of digital certificates in a public-key infrastructure (PKI)
• Certificate hierarchies

If you are new to these concepts, we recommend you read the security- related documents available online at this URL:

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/security.html

You may also refer to the security-related appendixes (D and E) of the accompanying manual, Managing Servers with Netscape Console.

• Are familiar with the role of Netscape Console in managing Netscape version 4.x servers. Otherwise, see the accompanying manual, Managing Servers with Netscape Console.
• Have read the Netscape Certificate Management System Installation and Deployment Guide.

The following conventions are used in this guide:

• Monospaced font

This typeface is used for any text that appears on the computer screen or text that you should type. It's also used for filenames, functions, and examples.

Example: Server Root is the directory where the CMS binaries are kept.

• Italic

Italic type is used for emphasis, book titles, and glossary terms.

Example: This control depends on the access permissions the superadministrator has set up for you.

• Text within "quotation marks"

Cross-references to other topics within this guide.

Example: For more information, see "Issuing a Certificate to a New User" on page 154.

• Boldface

Boldface type is used for various UI components such as captions and field names, and the terminology explained in the glossary, which can be found in Netscape Certificate Management System Installation and Deployment Guide.

Example:

Rotation frequency. From the drop-down list, select the interval at which the server should rotate the active error log file. The available choices are Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly. The default selection is Monthly.

• Monospaced [ ]

Square brackets enclose commands that are optional.

Example:

PrettyPrintCert <input_file> [<output_file>]

<input_file> specifies the path to the file that contains the base-64 encoded certificate.

<output_file> specifies the path to the file to write the certificate. This argument is optional; if you don't specify an output file, the certificate information is written to the standard output.

• Monospaced <>

Angle brackets enclose variables or placeholders. When following examples, replace the angle brackets and their text with text that applies to your situation. For example, when path names appear in angle brackets, substitute the path names used on your computer.

Example: Using Netscape Communicator 4.04 or later, enter the URL for the administration server:

http://<server_name>.<your_domain>.<domain>:<port_number>

• /

A slash is used to separate directories in a path. If you use the Windows NT operating system, you should replace / with \ in paths.

Example: Except for the Security Module Database Tool, you can find all the other command-line utilities at this location:

<server_root>/bin/cert/tools

• Sidebar text

Sidebar text marks important information. Make sure you read the information before continuing with a task.

Examples:

Caution A caution note documents a potential risk of losing data, damaging software or hardware, or otherwise disrupting system performance.

Unix Marks text that applies only to the Unix versions of Certificate Management System.

Windows NT Marks text that applies only to the Windows NT version of Certificate Management System.

Where to Go for Related Information

This section summarizes the documentation that ships with Netscape Certificate Management System, using these conventions:

• <server_root> is the directory where the CMS binaries are kept (which you specify during installation).
• <instance_id> is the ID for this instance of Netscape Certificate Management System (specified during installation).

The documentation set for Netscape Certificate Management System includes the following:

• Managing Servers with Netscape Console provides background information on basic cryptography concepts and the role of Netscape Console. For the HTML version, open this file: <server_root>/manual/en/admin/help/contents.htm
• Netscape Certificate Management System Installation and Deployment Guide describes how to plan for and install Netscape Certificate Management System. To access the installation and configuration information from within the CMS Installation Wizard, click any help button.

The HTML version of this guide is located at <server_root>/manual/en/ cert/dep_gide/contents.htm.

The PDF version of this guide is located at <server_root>/manual/en/ cert/pdf/cms42install.pdf.

• Netscape Certificate Management System Administrator's Guide (this guide) provides detailed reference information on CMS administration interfaces. To access this information from the CMS window within Netscape Console, click any help button.

To view the HTML version of this guide, open this file: <server_root>/ manual/en/cert/adm_gide/contents.htm

To view the PDF version of this guide, open this file: <server_root>/ manual/en/cert/pdf/cms42adm.pdf

• Netscape Certificate Management System Agent's Guide provides detailed reference information on CMS agent interfaces. To access this information from the Agent Services pages, click any help button.

To view the HTML version of this guide, open this file: <server_root>/ cert-<instance_id>/web/agent/manual/agt_gide/contents.htm.

To view the PDF version of this guide, open this file: <server_root>/ manual/en/cert/pdf/cms42agent.pdf

• End-entity help (online only, not printed) provides detailed reference information on CMS end-entity interfaces. To access this information from the end-entity pages, click any help button.

To view the HTML version of this document, open this file: <server_root>/cert-<instance_id>/web/ee/manual/ee_gide/ contents.htm