ZyXEL Communications VMG5313-B10A/ VMG5313-B30A User Manual

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VMG5313-B10A/-B30A Series User’s Guide
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Certificates
21.1  Overview
The VMG can use certificates (also called digital IDs) to authenticate users. Certificates are based 
on public-private key pairs. A certificate contains the certificate owner’s identity and public key. 
Certificates provide a way to exchange public keys for use in authentication. 
21.1.1  What You Can Do in this Chapter
• The Local Certificates screen lets you generate certification requests and import the VMG's CA-
signed certificates (
).
• The Trusted CA screen lets you save the certificates of trusted CAs to the VMG (
).
21.2  What You Need to Know
The following terms and concepts may help as you read through this chapter.
Certification Authority 
A Certification Authority (CA) issues certificates and guarantees the identity of each certificate 
owner. There are commercial certification authorities like CyberTrust or VeriSign and government 
certification authorities. The certification authority uses its private key to sign certificates. Anyone 
can then use the certification authority's public key to verify the certificates. You can use the VMG 
to generate certification requests that contain identifying information and public keys and then send 
the certification requests to a certification authority.
21.3  The Local Certificates Screen
Click Security > Certificates to open the Local Certificates screen. This is the VMG’s summary 
list of certificates and certification requests.