The following instructions will guide you through the CSR generation process on Microsoft Exchange 2010. To learn more about CSRs and the importance of your private key, reference our Overview of Certificate Signing Request article. If you already generated the CSR and received your trusted SSL certificate, reference our SSL Installation Instructions and disregard the steps below.
1. Launch Exchange
Launch Microsoft Exchange 2010 from your programs and select Exchange Management Console.
2. Navigate to “New Exchange Certificate”
Select Manage Databases on the right hand side.
Select Server Configurations in the left side menu.
Select New Exchange Certificate in the right side menu.
3. Enter a Friendly Name
Enter a Friendly Name when prompted in the opened window.
Note: Please name the file something you can easily recognize in the future. This will only be an internal reference name and will not be part of your SSL certificate.
4. Indicate if certificate is Wildcard
In the Domain Scope menu, select the check box ONLY if you are using a Wildcard Certificate (*.yourdomain.com) and if so, skip to Step 6. If not, proceed accordingly to the next screen/step.
5. Specify Domain Names
In the Exchange Configuration menu, click the Service Options that you plan on securing and specify the Domain Name for each service.
Note: The next screen will suggest names for you. You can remove them if you like by right clicking on them.
6. Enter in the CSR Details
- Common Name (CN): The FQDN (fully-qualified domain name) you want to secure with the certificate such as www.google.com, secure.website.org, *.domain.net, etc.
- Organization Name (ON): The full legal name of your organization including the corporate identifier.
- Organizational Unit (OU): Your department such as ‘Information Technology’ or “Website Security.”
- Locality or City (L): The locality or city where your organization is legally incorporated. Do not abbreviate.
- State or Province (S): The state or province where your organization is legally incorporated. Do not abbreviate.
- Country Name (C): The official two-letter country code (i.e. US, CH) where your organization is legally incorporated.
7. Save the CSR
Click Browse to specify the location where you want to save the CSR as a “.reg” file and click Save.
Enter a friendly name to distinguish the request in the future.
Click Next, New, and then Finish.
8. Generate the Order
Locate and open the newly created CSR from the specified location you choose in a text editor such as Notepad and copy all the text including:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- And -----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
Return to the Generation Form on our website and paste the entire CSR into the blank text box and continue with completing the generation process.
Upon generating your CSR, your order will enter the validation process with the issuing Certificate Authority (CA) and require the certificate requester to complete some form of validation depending on the certificate purchased. For information regarding the different levels of the validation process and how to satisfy the industry requirements, reference our validation articles.
After you complete the validation process and receive the trusted SSL Certificate from the issuing Certificate Authority (CA), proceed with the next step using our SSL Installation Instructions for Microsoft Exchange 2010.