Creating Internet certificates for Notes® S/MIME clients

The procedure used to create Internet certificates for IBM® Notes® is the same, whether you use IBM® Domino® or a third-party CA to issue the certificates.

About this task

The CA and client complete these steps to add a Domino® Internet certificate to the Notes® ID file. A Notes® client can use one Internet certificate or use dual Internet certificates for S/MIME encryption and signatures.

Procedure

  1. Before issuing certificates, the CA must determine if Internet certificates should be created using the existing public and private keys from the Notes® ID file or if the CA wants to issue certificates based on new keys generated from a browser certificate request. If clients use a browser that supports PKCS #12, clients can also import an existing Internet certificate into the Notes® ID file. Depending on the environment, the administrator may choose to use a combination of these options for different users.
  2. The CA adds a trusted root certificate to a Domino® Directory that the client can access.

    The client can also add a trusted root certificate to Contacts; however, adding a trusted root certificate to the Domino® Directory simplifies the process of setting up Notes® clients for S/MIME because the trusted root is accessible to many clients.

  3. The client creates a cross-certificate using the trusted root certificate for the CA and stores it in Contacts.
  4. To create a certificate using the existing public and private keys in the Notes® ID file, use these steps:
    1. The CA adds an Internet certificate to the Person document.
    2. The client authenticates with the home server. Notes® automatically merges the Internet certificate into the ID file.
  5. To use new public and private keys to create an Internet certificate, use these steps:
    1. The client requests the Internet certificate from the CA.
    2. The CA approves the request, and Domino® automatically adds the client's Internet certificate to the user's Person document.
    3. The client merges the Internet certificate into the ID file.

Results

For information about how Notes® clients merge Internet certificates into their ID files, see Notes® Help.