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Generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) for an SSL Certificate from RapidSSL.com

Jakarta-Tomcat

Follow these instructions to generate a CSR for your Web site. When you have completed this process, you will have a CSR ready to submit to RapidSSL.com in order to be generated into a SSL Security Certificate.

If you are not using JDK 1.4 or higher, you must download and install "Java Secure Socket Extensions" JSSE.

1. Generate a private key with the following command:

$JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA -keystore /path/to/domainname.kdb

You will be prompted for a password. Tomcat uses a default password of "changeit". If you use a different password, you will need to specify a custom password in the server.xml configuration file.

The next field that you will be prompted for is "What is your first and last name?" At this prompt, you must specify the common name (FQDN) of your web site.

You will then be prompted for your organizational unit, organization, etc.

.2. Generate the Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

$JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -certreq -alias tomcat -keystore /path/to/keystore.kdb -file filename.csr

You will not be prompted for the common name, organization, etc. The keytool will use the values that you specify when generating the private key.

3. Now go to www.RapidSSL.com, select your certificate product and click the relevant Order Now button. Make sure that you have your CSR file handy - you will need this during the enrollment process. Go through steps for purchasing a certificate and paste your certificate request in block when prompted
Be sure to include -----BEGIN NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- and -----END NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----

4. Make a backup of the keystore.kdb key database. RapidSSL.com is not responsible if your server crashes and this file is lost.