PKI Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟CAcert.org - Root CA Offering Free Certificates

∟Installing CAcert.org Root CA in Firefox 3

This section provides a tutorial example on how to install CAcert.org root CA certificate in Firefox 3. Note that CAcert.org CA certificate is not pre-installed in Firefox 3.

As I mentioned in the previous section, Firefox 3 and other popular Web browsers do not recognize CAcert.org as a trusted root CA. Whenever you visit an HTTPS site with server certificate issued by CAcert.org, you will get an error page saying that the server certificate verification is failed.

To fix this issue, you need to install CAcert.org's certificate as trusted root CA certificate into Web browsers manually. Here I how I did it on Firefox 3.

1. Run Firefox 3 and visit https://support.ntp.org. The "This Connection is Untrusted" error page shows up. This confirms that CAcert.org's certificate is not a trusted root CA certificate in Firefox 3, because ntp.org's certificate is issued by CAcert.org.

2. Now visit http://www.cacert.org/index.php?id=3. CAcert.org certificates page shows up.

3. Click "Root Certificate (PEM Format)" link. The "Download Certificate" dialog box shows up.
Install CAcert.org Root Certificate in Firefox 3

4. Check "Trust this CA to identify web sites" option and click "OK". CAcert.org's root certificate is installed in Firefox 3 now.

5. Close Firefox 3 and run it again to visit https://support.ntp.org. "The NTP Public Services Project" page shows up properly now.

6. View the server certificate path. See other Firefox 3 tutorials in this book for detailed steps. You will see: 

CA Cert Signing Authority   - The root CA certificate
 |- support.ntp.org         - The server certificate

Last update: 2011.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)

 Introduction of HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure)

 Using HTTPS with IE (Internet Explorer) 10

 Using HTTPS with Chrome 40

 Using HTTPS with Firefox 35

 Perl Scripts Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 PHP Scripts Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 Java Programs Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 Certificate Stores and Certificate Console

 .NET Programs Communicating with HTTPS Servers

►CAcert.org - Root CA Offering Free Certificates

 About CAcert.org

 Join CAcert.org as a Member

►Installing CAcert.org Root CA in Firefox 3

 Installig CAcert.org Root CA in IE 8

 Adding and Validating Domain Names

 Generating Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

 Getting Server Certificate Signed by CAcert.org

 PKI CA Administration - Issuing Certificates

 Digital Signature - Microsoft Word 2007

 Digital Signature - OpenOffice.org 3

 S/MIME and Email Security

 PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) Terminology

 Outdated Tutorials

 References

 PDF Printing Version