Importing SSL certificates in Internet Explorer

Depending on the details of your deployment, you may have to import the SSL certificates to your browser.

Typically, you do not need to import the SSL certificates in the Internet Explorer browser. For example, you can run the Endeca reference implementations without importing SSL certificates to your browser.

However, you must import the certificates in Internet Explorer if you are using the deprecated Endeca JCD with SSL and you want to connect directly to it via your browser. For details, see the Endeca Control System Guide.

To import the SSL certificates in Internet Explorer:

  1. If you created the SSL certificates on a UNIX machine, copy the eneCert.p12 and eneCA.cer files to the Windows machine.
  2. Open Internet Explorer. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.
  3. In the Internet Options dialog box, click the Content tab and then the Certificates button to display the Certificates dialog box.
  4. If imported certificates are listed from any previous Endeca installations, delete them.
  5. In the Certificates dialog box, click Import to launch the Certificate Import wizard. This allows you to import the standard or custom SSL certificates that you created using the enecerts utility. Follow these steps:
    1. In the Welcome screen, click Next.
    2. In the File to Import screen, browse to eneCA.cer, which is located in the %ENDECA_CONF%\etc directory or the directory to which you copied the file. You may have to change the File of Type option to X.509 Certificate to see the eneCA.cer file.
    3. In the Certificate Store screen, choose Automatically select the certificate store based on the type of certificate.
    4. In the Completing the Certificate Import Wizard screen, click Finish. (If you receive a Security Warning, click Yes.) When you see the confirmation message, click OK.
    5. Relaunch the Certificate Import wizard.
    6. In the File to Import screen, browse to the eneCert.p12 file, which is located in the same directory as the eneCA.cer file.
    7. In the Password screen, enter the password you used when you created the SSL certificates.
    8. In the Certificate Store screen, choose Automatically select the certificate store based on the type of certificate.
    9. In the Completing the Certificate Import Wizard screen, click Finish. When you see the confirmation message, click OK.
  6. Close the Certificates window.
  7. Click OK in the Internet Options window.
If an SSL-enabled JCD is running, you can test the access to it with the imported SSL certificate files:
  1. In Internet Explorer, enter a command similar to the following in the Address box to open the Endeca JCD home page:
    https://localhost:8088
  2. If a Client Authentication dialog appears, select the certificate to use (for example, the Endeca User certificate) and click Yes.
  3. The browser should display a page titled Endeca JCD followed by a list of links. You can click on any link to execute that command.