11.3.6. PKI management

A tree-like navigation window displays the managed internal CAs. On a newly installed system only local CAs created by default are available. Expired certificates are shown in red.

The PKI management navigation window

Figure 11.7. The PKI management navigation window

The internal CAs have small arrows that can be used to display the certificates issued and revoked by the CA.

For a given certificate, the following information is displayed:

  • the common name of the certificate

  • the validity (not before and not after)

  • the state, whether the certificate is active (a) or pending (p)

    A certificate becomes pending if the certificate of the CA issuing it (or the certificate of a CA higher in the CA chain) is refreshed. A certificate has to be refreshed if its validity period has expired, even if its private key has not changed. This is because the hash of the refreshed certificate is different from the old one.

    Warning

    When the certificate of a CA is refreshed, all certificates issued by the CA have to be refreshed (reissued) as well. If the CA has issued certificates for sub-CAs, then also the certificates issued by these subCAs have to be refreshed.