Requesting and purchasing an SSL certificate is not as scary as it may seem. Armed with the knowledge of the process, it can be done in a few hours spread out over a few days in most cases.
Requirements
To acquire a basic SSL certificate, a few items are necessary:
- Web server access
- An account with a certificate authority
- A domain name and unique IP address
First, you will need administrative access to the web server that the ArcGIS Web Adaptor will be installed on. For our purposes here, we will be using IIS 8.5 on Windows Server 2012 R2. SSL certificates can, of course, be installed on any flavor of web server. See your web server's documentation for details on SSL certificate installation. Secondly, you, or someone in your organization, will need an account with a certificate authority, such as Digicert, GoDaddy, or Entrust, through which you will apply for and purchase the certificate. Again, check with your systems administrator before proceeding with the purchase of any SSL certificates. Finally, you will need a unique IP address and domain name to go along with it.
Getting the certificate
The first step in acquiring an SSL certificate is the generation of a certificate signing request or CSR. A CSR is a block of encoded text generated on the server where the certificate will be installed; it contains information that will be included in the certificate, such as the organization and domain name. Think of CSR as a digital signature for your server. To generate a CSR in IIS, follow these steps:
- Launch IIS, select the machine name in the left Connections menu, then double-click on Server Certificates in Features View:
- In the right Actions menu, click on Create Certificate Request...:
- Fill out the Distinguished Name Properties, being careful to match these items (especially the Organization name) to those of the WHOIS record for your domain name. Click on Next:
- For Cryptographic Service Provider Properties, select Microsoft RSA SChannel Cryptographic Provider with a Bit length of 2048; these are typical industry standards:
-
Specify a name and location for your CSR text file, as shown in the following screenshot:
- Open your CSR in a text editor; it will look like the following screenshot:
The second step in acquiring an SSL certificate is to purchase the certificate from the certificate authority, or CA. All CAs are different, but the process is the same in principle. First, log in to your account and purchase your SSL certificate. There are different options, so research them and find out which is best for your needs. Next, purchase your certificate. After you make the purchase, it will be available to you in your account.
The final step in this process is to apply your CSR to the certificate in your account. Here, you are requesting the certificate with the certificate signing request from your web server--this will bind the SSL certificate to your server, ensuring your end users that the site they are going to is indeed your site. After a successful request of the certificate from the CA, you will be able to download the certificate as a ZIP file.