How to install client authentication certificate?

1) Create a certificate on the client computer. I know there is a GUI application for generating certificates for some servers - the one you need to use will be something like: CertMgr from Microsoft or certmgr from another vendor. 2) Install that certificate on CA machine. In either case, if you are using Active Directory on a corporate network, you can use Group Policy to import that certificate into the trust store of that server. 3) Make this certificate available for the server. You need to export the certificate on the client and make sure it is configured to have a lifetime longer than the connection. I think windows firewall allows you to change the maximum lifetime for a particular IP address. After the lifetime has expired, the client will be prompted to request a new certificate. So, ensure your client is installed with certificate validation enabled, the validity period of the certificate has passed for the IP address, and the certificate was not revoked.

From my experience, it takes about 15 minutes to get the cert installed and working. If the client itself is a web browser (Firefox), you can download the certificate as a self-signed cert directly from a valid CA and install it on the client.

What is an example of certificate authentication?

The most common type of authentication is digital certificates.

It works like this: When someone is about to send data to your computer (say, to a website) they need to be sure that it is you. So they use a digital certificate (a piece of data that says "this is me"). They use the certificate to sign their data and attach it to the data. Your computer then checks the certificate and if it matches, accepts the data as being from the user in question.

You can't read the contents of a certificate once it has been created. The way that they are stored on your computer is by signing the certificate so that it only you can read it. This is why you can't change the contents of a certificate.

How do I authenticate a client certificate?

The client keystore and cert/key pairs need to be exported from KeyChain access application on OSX Mountain Lion, and saved as .

Pfx or .p12 on an iOS device (iPhone, iPad). See Apple documents for more information about exporting certificate(s) as either PKCS12 file containing one certificate chain or PFX file containing multiple chains. The import needs to be performed from either the Mac computer or iOS device, when the .p12 is imported. Also, certificates need to be imported using importcert tool, which needs a matching client cert/key pair.

Step 1: Export server keystore and cert/keypair on host OSX client computer (or mobile). Step 2: Import server certificates and key on iOS client computer (or mobile). The client keystore and cert/key pairs need to be exported from KeyChain access application on OSX Mountain Lion, and saved as .p12 on an iOS device (iPhone, iPad). See Apple documents for more information about exporting certificate(s) as either PKCS12 file containing one certificate chain or PFX file containing multiple chains.

Step 1: Export server keystore and cert/keypair on host OSX client computer (or mobile). You must export the certificates from Keychain first. Please export at least server or client certs/keys. Then you can export them to .p12 files and upload to the device as desired. If a client's cert/key pair is different than the server's cert/key pair, there will be a warning message.

You can also import those .p12 files directly into the device's keychain, to import client and server certs/keys at the same time if the key/cert pairs do match.

What is client certificate format?

We are trying to connect to my MVC web API using Azure AD authentication.

From our client side, we are using .NET client to connect to our API. In the documentation we read that we can authenticate with a certificate.

My question is how does this work. Where do we store our certificate, we do not see it anywhere? Is it stored in the browser or on the server (on our web API).

The certificate is not stored anywhere. You're signing in with a client certificate and sending the certificate to the API on your behalf.