Using the Basic Constraints extension in X.509 v3 certificates for intermediate CAs
16 March 2009
It’s not often that you’ll be creating your own X.509 certificates for a web server, since any certificates that you create (self-signed or signed by your own CA) will not be trusted by most browsers (IE, Firefox, etc.) since they were not signed by one of the many Certificate Authorities (CAs) that have been automatically trusted by the browser. If you do decide to use one of these certificates on your web server, you’ll have to navigate through a Byzantine series of screens to “confirm” that you trust the server’s certificate. (Though this is annoying, it may be ultimately beneficial in today’s era of phishing and other malicious behaviour.)