ZyXEL Communications 2 Network Router User Manual


 
AMG1312-T Series User’s Guide 189
CHAPTER 17
Certificate
17.1 Overview
The AMG1312-T Series can use certificates (also called digital IDs) to authenticate users.
Certificates are based on public-private key pairs. A certificate contains the certificate owner’s
identity and public key. Certificates provide a way to exchange public keys for use in authentication.
17.1.1 What You Can Do in this Chapter
•Use the Local Certificates screen to view and import the AMG1312-T Series’s CA-signed
certificates (Section 17.3 on page 189).
•The Trusted CA screen lets you save the certificates of trusted CAs to the AMG1312-T Series
(Section 17.4 on page 191).
17.2 What You Need to Know
The following terms and concepts may help as you read through this chapter.
Certification Authority
A Certification Authority (CA) issues certificates and guarantees the identity of each certificate
owner. There are commercial certification authorities like CyberTrust or VeriSign and government
certification authorities. The certification authority uses its private key to sign certificates. Anyone
can then use the certification authority's public key to verify the certificates. You can use the
AMG1312-T Series to generate certification requests that contain identifying information and public
keys and then send the certification requests to a certification authority.
Certificate File Format
The certification authority certificate that you want to import has to be in one of these file formats:
PEM (Base-64) encoded X.509: This Privacy Enhanced Mail format uses 64 ASCII characters to
convert a binary X.509 certificate into a printable form.
17.3 Local Certificates
Use this screen to view the AMG1312-T Series’s summary list of certificates and certification
requests. You can import the following certificates to your AMG1312-T Series: