ZyXEL p-660hwp Manual Do Utilizador

Chapter 13 Certificates

P-660HWP-Dx User’s Guide

Certification authorities maintain directory servers with databases of valid and revoked 
certificates. A directory of certificates that have been revoked before the scheduled expiration 
is called a CRL (Certificate Revocation List). The P-660HWP-Dx can check a peer’s 
certificate against a directory server’s list of revoked certificates. The framework of servers, 
software, procedures and policies that handles keys is called PKI (public-key infrastructure).

Certificates offer the following benefits.

• The P-660HWP-Dx only has to store the certificates of the certification authorities that 

you decide to trust, no matter how many devices you need to authenticate. 

• Key distribution is simple and very secure since you can freely distribute public keys and 

you never need to transmit private keys.

You can have the P-660HWP-Dx act as a certification authority and sign its own certificates.

Before you import a trusted CA or trusted remote host certificate into the P-660HWP-Dx, you 
should verify that you have the actual certificate. This is especially true of trusted CA 
certificates since the P-660HWP-Dx also trusts any valid certificate signed by any of the 
imported trusted CA certificates.

A certificate’s fingerprints are message digests calculated using the MD5 or SHA1 algorithms. 
The following procedure describes how to check a certificate’s fingerprint to verify that you 
have the actual certificate. 

1 Browse to where you have the certificate saved on your computer. 
2 Make sure that the certificate has a “.cer” or “.crt” file name extension.

Figure 112   Certificates on Your Computer

3 Double-click the certificate’s icon to open the Certificate window. Click the Details tab 

and scroll down to the Thumbprint Algorithm and Thumbprint fields.