Deciding on a Certificate Authority

We can't tell you which certificate authority to choose. Your decision may be based on your past experiences, or on the experiences of your friends or colleagues, or purely on monetary factors. We will guide you through the process of getting a digital certificate from both VeriSign and Thawte.

At the time this document was written, VeriSign charged $349 for the first server digital certificate and $249 for each additional server. Thawte charged $125 for each server. Each of these amounts will get you a certificate good for a limited amount of time, normally a year. You'll need to check with the CA when you purchase the certificate to find out exactly when your certificate will need to be renewed.

At extra cost, Thawte can provide its Strong Extranet capability to your Red Hat Linux Apache/SSL Server. Thawte's Strong Extranet system allows you to use personal certificates for authenticating users to Web servers. Other methods of authentication, including usernames/passwords, can be used in addition to the certificate methods of the Strong Extranet system.

To implement Thawte's Strong Extranet, you'll need to compile in the sxnet_module. The module is included with your Red Hat Linux Apache/SSL Server, but not loaded in by default. To load in the sxnet_module, uncomment the #LoadModule sxnet_module modules/mod_sxnet.so and #AddModule mod_sxnet.c lines in your httpd.conf file, and restart your Red Hat Linux Apache/SSL Server. More information on adding modules to Apache is included in the section called Adding Modules to Your Server in Chapter 4.

You'll also need to configure your server in other ways in order to support Thawte's Strong Extranet functionality. Please see Thawte's website at http://www.thawte.com/certs/strongextranet/contents.php3 for more information.

Please Note: Through a special arrangement with Thawte, purchasers of the Red Hat Linux Apache/SSL Server boxed set can obtain signed certificates for only $100 per server. Instructions for obtaining the discounted price can be found in the section called Purchasing a Certificate From Thawte.