ZyXEL Communications NWA-1100 User Manual

ZyXEL NWA-1100 User’s Guide

This chapter describes how your ZyXEL Device can use certificates as a means of 
authenticating wireless clients. It gives background information about public-key certificates 
and explains how to use them.
A certificate contains the certificate owner’s identity and public key. Certificates provide a 
way to exchange public keys for use in authentication.

Figure 54   Certificates Example

In the figure above, the ZyXEL Device (Z) checks the identity of the notebook (A) using a 
certificate before granting access to the network.

Use the CERTIFICATES > Certificate screen (seen 

) to view, 

delete and import certificates.

The certification authority certificate that you can import to your ZyXEL Device should be in 
PFX PKCS#12 file format. This format referred to as the Personal Information Exchange 
Syntax Standard is comprised of a private key-public certificate pair that is further encrypted 
with a password.  Before you import a certificate into the ZyXEL Device, you should verify 
that you have the correct certificate.
Key distribution is simple and very secure since you can freely distribute public keys and you 
never need to transmit private keys.