Request a certification authority certificate for the client

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

To request a certification authority certificate for the client

  1. Open Internet Explorer.

  2. In Internet Explorer, connect to https://servername/certsrv, where servername is the name of the Web server running Windows Server 2003 where the certification authority (CA) you want to access is located.

  3. Click Download a CA certificate, certificate chain, or CRL.

  4. If you want to trust all the certificates issued by this CA, click Install this CA certificate chain. A certificate chain contains the chain of certificates that can be traced back to the root CA.

  5. If you are finished using the Certificate Services Web pages, close Internet Explorer.

Notes

  • Performing this task does not require you to have administrative credentials. Therefore, as a security best practice, consider performing this task as a user without administrative credentials.

  • To open Internet Explorer, click Start, point to All Programs, and then click Internet Explorer.

  • Use this procedure to ensure that clients trust the root of the server’s certificate (that is, clients have the certificate of the root CA that issued the server certificate in their Trusted Root Certification Authorities store). This requirement must be met for Transport Level Security (TLS) to be used for server authentication when clients connect to a terminal server. For more information about client and server requirements and tasks for configuring Terminal Server to support TLS authentication, see Configuring authentication and encryption.

  • Choosing Install this CA certification path is useful when you want to establish trust in a subordinate CA, but you do not currently have the certificate of the root CA in your certificate store.

Information about functional differences

  • Your server might function differently based on the version and edition of the operating system that is installed, your account permissions, and your menu settings. For more information, see Viewing Help on the Web.

See Also

Concepts

Configuring authentication and encryption
Configure authentication on the client by using Remote Desktop Connection
Request a computer certificate for server authentication
Configure authentication and encryption on the server
Requesting certificates