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How to Examine Properties of a Certificate

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 SP1 - Service Manager, System Center 2012 R2 Service Manager, System Center 2012 - Service Manager

Use this procedure to examine the properties of a certificate you use with the Self-Service Portal in System Center 2012 – Service Manager. Make sure that the URL you use for the Self-Service Portal matches the name on the certificate, and make sure that the certification authority (CA) that issued the certificate is a trusted CA. This gives you the opportunity to make sure that the URL you specify for the Self-Service Portal does not result in any certificate warnings or blank frames in the browser. In this example, the computer is in Woodgrove National Bank. The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the computer is portal.woodgrove.com. The CA that issued the certificate is woodgroveCA. Note the Issued to” and “Issued by” fields in the following illustration.

Examine Certificate Properties

To view the properties of a certificate, you add the Certificates snap-in to the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). When you examine the certificate, the value in the “Issued to” field represents the URL that you must use when you are accessing the SharePoint website server, and the value in the “Issued to” field must match the URL that the your browser will use to connect to the web content server. The value in the “Issued by” field represents the CA that issued this certificate, and it must trace back to the trusted root.

You can also use this procedure to determine the thumbprint of a certificate.

To examine the properties of a certificate

  1. Log on to the computer where you want to examine a certificate with administrator privileges.

  2. Click Start, in Search programs and files type mmc, and then press Enter.

  3. In the Console1 window, click File, and then click Add/Remove Snap-in.

  4. In Add or Remove Snap-ins, click Certificates, and then click Add.

  5. In the Certificates snap-in, click Computer account, and then click Next.

  6. In Select Computer, make sure that Local computer is selected, and then click Finish.

  7. In Add or Remove Snap-ins, click OK.

  8. In the Console1 window, expand Certificates (Local Computer), expand Personal, and then click Certificates.

  9. In the Issued To pane, double-click the certificate that you want to use for the Self-Service Portal. Examine the Issued to and Issued by fields.

  10. Click OK.

  11. In the Console1 window, expand Trusted Root Certification Authorities, and then click Certificates.

  12. In the Issued To pane, make sure that the CA that issued your certificate is listed here.

To determine the thumbprint of a certificate

  1. If you have not done so already, create a certificate snap-in, as described in steps 1 through 8 in the previous procedure.

  2. In the Issued To pane, double-click the certificate that you want to examine.

  3. In the Certificate dialog box, click Details.

  4. In the Show list, click Properties Only.

  5. Copy the thumbprint and use it to define the certificate that you want to use.

  6. Click OK to close the Certificate dialog box.

See Also

SSL Certificates for the Self-Service Portal