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Generating a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) - Apache 2.x

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Last Updated: October 26, 2009 3:17 PM

Follow the below instructions to generate a CSR for your website. When you have completed generating your CSR, cut/copy and paste it into the CSR field on the SSL certificate-request page.

To Generate a Triple-DES Encrypted Key Pair and a Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

In a command prompt, enter the following, pressing Enter after each line:

  1. cd /usr/bin/ (/your path to openssl/)
    Enter a passphrase when prompted to.
  2. openssl genrsa -des3 -out <name of your certificate>.key 2048
  3. openssl req -new -key <name of your certificate>.key -out <name of your certificate>.csr

NOTE: If you are requesting a Wildcard certificate, please add an asterisk (*) on the left side of the Common Name (e.g., "*.coolexample.com" or "www*.coolexample.com"). This will secure all subdomains of the Common Name.