Retrieving Certificate for signing & encrypting my mails

[Burç Şahinoğlu]

Hello all,

We have a Microsoft certificate server within our company. When I request
the existing certificate from its web interface it provides a .cer file.

I tried importing this file directly into the keychain and using the office
cert tool. They both import it but they don't seem to be the right kind of
certificate, they don't seem to have a public & private key.

I read the article "Getting started with S/MIME" but this only shows how to
request a key from an "public" provider.

Any information would be appreciated.

Burc Sahinoglu

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hello all,

Hi Burc,

We have a Microsoft certificate server within our company. When I request
the existing certificate from its web interface it provides a .cer file.

I tried importing this file directly into the keychain and using the office
cert tool. They both import it but they don't seem to be the right kind of
certificate, they don't seem to have a public & private key.

All you should have to do is double-click it in the Finder. It should
open the Keychain Access application and import it. What happens when
you do?? Did you get a prompt for your certificate password?
You could also try downloading it with Safari (which then does a pretty
good job at importing it into the keychain).

It is possible that you didn't get the proper certificate though...

Corentin

 

[Burç Şahinoğlu]

Thanks for the response Corentin.

I must be missing something because it does download a certificate, it does
import it but it does not ask me for any kind of password and when I look at
the keychain that certificate does not appear under "My Certificates" or
"Keys." It does appear un the "Certificates" section but it does not have a
private key.

I am suspecting that I am not getting the right kind of certificate from the
server, but the server does not allow me to get anything else. I am
suspecting the question is more "how to get a <right kind of> certificate
from the certificate server"

In the PC world this is pretty much transparent as it is directly provided
in exchange I believe.

I am a bit clueless here, I have asked my IT guy but since I am the only MAC
person at the office it might take a while before I get an answer. In the
mean time I will be looking into cert services.

If anyone can provide help I would sincerely appreciate it.

Burc

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Thanks for the response Corentin.

Hi Burc,

I must be missing something because it does download a certificate, it does
import it but it does not ask me for any kind of password and when I look at
the keychain that certificate does not appear under "My Certificates" or
"Keys." It does appear un the "Certificates" section but it does not have a
private key.

It's not the certificate you should have been importing. From what you
describe, that's the certificate for a server allowing you to connect to
it through SSL.

I am suspecting that I am not getting the right kind of certificate from the
server, but the server does not allow me to get anything else. I am
suspecting the question is more "how to get a <right kind of> certificate
from the certificate server"

Well that depends on the server.... I really can't tell you since I
don't know your server.

In the PC world this is pretty much transparent as it is directly provided
in exchange I believe.

Is it really?? I wasn't aware of that... I'm not so sure it is the case.

I am a bit clueless here, I have asked my IT guy but since I am the only MAC
person at the office it might take a while before I get an answer. In the
mean time I will be looking into cert services.

I use Tahwte certificate (free for e-mail). I connect through SafaRI,
request a certificate for one of my registered address. After a short
while I get a notification telling me that the certificate is ready: I
connect again, click to download the certificate and it is automatically
imported for me in my keychains.
Fairly simple, but quite different from what you describe for Outlook.
It's the same process (more or less) for Windows users. They need to
connect to the Thawte website to download and import their certificate.
No Outlook option there either.

The people who administrate your server should be able to point you
towards the right direction. The fact that you are a Mac user is
irrelevent. Windows users might need to download the certificate through
their web browser too.

Corentin