How to Generate a CSR on a Linux-based Server

How to Generate a CSR on a Linux-based Server

Introduction

A certificate signing request (CSR) is one of the essential steps before getting your SSL Certificate. Following are the steps on how to generate a CSR on a Linux-based server, where an OpenSSL is planned to be installed.
 
Before we generate the CSR for a domain, we need to obtain the following information.
 
Common Name: The name of the domain in need of an SSL certificate.

 Organization: The name of your organization/company

 Organizational Unit: Affiliated department

 Locality (City):  

 State:

 Country:

Log into the terminal of your server

Please log into the server where you plan to install the certificate via Secure Shell (SSH).

Install OpenSSL

Please use the following commands to install OpenSSL tool if it has not been installed on your server.
yum install openssl -y (Centos)
apt install openssl -y (debian/ubuntu)
 
yum install openssl -y

Create a private key and a CSR

Please use the following command to generate a private key and a CSR :
 
openssl req -new - newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout domain.key -out domain.csr
Note: Please replace the key and CSR name with your domain name that needs to create the CSR.

Enter the details of the CSR

 
CSR requires the following information
  • Common Name: The domain that needs the  CSR. Such as www.google.com.
  • Organization: The name of your organization/ company.
  • Organization Unit (OU): Affiliated department.
  • City or Locality:
  • State or Province:
  • Country: The official two-letter country code (i.e. US, UK, IN) where your organization is legally
Note: You do not need to enter a password or passphrase. This optional field is for applying additional security to your key pair.

Check the CSR and private key

The CSR will be created after step 3.
Note: Please ensure that the private key will be saved. The private key is very important to create a pfx certificate or use the SSL certificate to web service of the Linux server.
 

6 The next step

Once you have completed all of the above steps, you can proceed to configure a certificate in the Billing system by referring to How to Configure a Certificate in the Billing System.

Add Feedback