[THIN] Re: Tip of the Week: Easy way for users to install Microsoft Certificate from your Web Interface

  • From: "M" <mathras@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 23:20:45 +0100

Glad someone else mentioned Geotrust.I have been using them since the early 
days of CSG and they are very good.
You can also redo your SSL cert ( so long as it is the same FQDN) as many times 
as you like.


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Evan Mann 
  To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 11:11 PM
  Subject: [THIN] Re: Tip of the Week: Easy way for users to install Microsoft 
Certificate from your Web Interface


  Yup.  Until I got involved, we did everything with VeriSign.  Everyone knows 
their name, so people default to them. No good reason to do that however.

  I switched to GeoTrust under an Enterprise SSL agreement, which drops it down 
to $200/year for a 1 year on a "pay as you go" (uses a credit card), or 
$145/year if I buy a block of 5 SSL certs at 2 year duration up front, which 
gives you 2 extra free months I think.  There are even higher discounts for 
bigger volumes.

  Thawte is also cheaper then VeriSign, and RapidSSL.com is one of the cheapest 
and still be fully trusted as part of the root certifies provided by Windows.

  We wanted to stay with a "big name", so it was VeriSign, Thawte, or GeoTrust, 
and I heard good things about GeoTrust customer service, so we ended up there.  
I'm happy with the choice, especially given the fact that I can have them 
pre-register domains, and once that occurs, I can order new SSL certs and 
approve them all by myself.  Nice and quick.





------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf 
Of M
  Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 5:38 PM
  To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: [THIN] Re: Tip of the Week: Easy way for users to install Microsoft 
Certificate from your Web Interface


  $1300 for an SSL cert  ...... is that for real ?

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.com 
    To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
    Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 6:56 PM
    Subject: [THIN] Tip of the Week: Easy way for users to install Microsoft 
Certificate from your Web Interface


     Hi All,
    After my Verisign cert on my web interface got corrupted and I went to 
verisign to get a replacement and found that they wanted $100 to give me a copy 
of a cert that I paid $1300 for I said no more!  So we installed a Microsoft 
Certificate on our web interface server.  
    But now how to explain to 1300 users how to install it?? Ugh.

    Well I happened across Thomas Koetzing's tip on how to automatically 
install it via activeX.  
    See: 
    
http://www.thomaskoetzing.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61&Itemid=101

    This tip gives you explicit instructions in the download on how to install 
the necessary files to make the private certificate load when the user accesses 
your
    web interface page via activeX.

    Of course not wanting to scare my users with ActiveX I went the route of 
just placing a link to an asp file I put on the server that loads the cert with 
two yes clicks by the user:
    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;297681

    The above article is a pretty much a copy and paste deal. Just copy the 
text and create a file and put it in your root Web interface directory.  The 
only thing you need to change
    in the file is the location of where your certificate file resides on your 
server.  

    I then just edited the /auth/header.inc file and put a link to the asp file 
I created from the above article.

     Works like a champ!

    Jim Kenzig 
    CEO The Kenzig Group
    http://www.kenzig.com
    Sponsorships Available!
    Blog: http://www.techblink.com
    Terminal Services Downloads: http://www.thinhelp.com
    Windows Vista: http://www.VistaPop.com
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