[HCoop-Misc] a query about ssl certificates

[Adam Chlipala]

Tanveer Singh wrote:
> If I genereate a certificate for him using the required openssl
> command, can I generate the crt file on any unix machine and mail it
> to him?
> After that he can give that to the hosting providor and they can
> install it for him.
> Or do I need to generate the certificate on that server only?
>   

You can generate the certificate anywhere, and it will work just as 
well. However, his provider isn't charging him $50 just to run an 
openssl command for him. The certificates they sell probably have short 
paths to certificate authorities included with the popular browsers. 
This means that users would be able to visit his site without getting 
warnings about untrusted certificates. They _would_ get such warnings 
for any self-signed certificate, and that is what you would be getting 
if you ran an openssl command yourself.