Chapter 14 Certificates
NWA3000-N Series User’s Guide
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• Key distribution is simple and very secure since you can freely distribute public
keys and you never need to transmit private keys.
Self-signed Certificates
You can have the NWA3000-N series AP act as a certification authority and sign its
own certificates.
Factory Default Certificate
The NWA3000-N series AP generates its own unique self-signed certificate when
you first turn it on. This certificate is referred to in the GUI as the factory default
certificate.
Certificate File Formats
Any certificate that you want to import has to be in one of these file formats:
• Binary X.509: This is an ITU-T recommendation that defines the formats for
X.509 certificates.
• PEM (Base-64) encoded X.509: This Privacy Enhanced Mail format uses
lowercase letters, uppercase letters and numerals to convert a binary X.509
certificate into a printable form.
• Binary PKCS#7: This is a standard that defines the general syntax for data
(including digital signatures) that may be encrypted. A PKCS #7 file is used to
transfer a public key certificate. The private key is not included. The NWA3000-
N series AP currently allows the importation of a PKS#7 file that contains a
single certificate.
• PEM (Base-64) encoded PKCS#7: This Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) format uses
lowercase letters, uppercase letters and numerals to convert a binary PKCS#7
certificate into a printable form.
• Binary PKCS#12: This is a format for transferring public key and private key
certificates.The private key in a PKCS #12 file is within a password-encrypted
envelope. The file’s password is not connected to your certificate’s public or
private passwords. Exporting a PKCS #12 file creates this and you must provide
it to decrypt the contents when you import the file into the NWA3000-N series
AP.
Note: Be careful not to convert a binary file to text during the transfer process. It is
easy for this to occur since many programs use text files by default.
14.1.3 Verifying a Certificate
Before you import a trusted certificate into the NWA3000-N series AP, you should
verify that you have the correct certificate. You can do this using the certificate’s
fingerprint. A certificate’s fingerprint is a message digest calculated using the
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