CSR Generation Instructions

The following instructions will guide you through the CSR generation process on Microsoft Exchange 2007. To learn more about CSRs and the importance of your private key, reference our Overview of Certificate Signing Request article. If you already generated the CSR and received your trusted SSL certificate, reference our SSL Installation Instructions and disregard the steps below.

  1. Launch Microsoft Exchange 2007 from your programs and select Exchange Management Shell.
  2. Copy and paste the below command in a text editor such as Notepad.
    New-ExchangeCertificate-GenerateRequest -KeySize 2048 -Path c:\YourCSRName.txt -SubjectName "c=US, l=YourLocalityOrCity, s=YourStateOrProvince, o=YourCompanyInc, cn=YourFirstDomain.com" -DomainName SubjectAlternativeName1.com, SubjectAlternativeName2.com -PrivateKeyExportable:$true
  3. Edit your CSR details accordingly in Notepad:   
    • -Path c:\YourCSRFileName.txt: The file path where you want to save the CSR as a “.txt” file.
    • Country Name (C): The official two-letter country code (i.e. US, CH) where your organization is legally incorporated.
    • Locality or City (L): The locality or city where your organization is legally incorporated. Do not abbreviate.
    • State or Province (S): The state or province where your organization is legally incorporated. Do not abbreviate.
    • Organization Name (O): The full legal name of your organization including the corporate identifier.
    • Common Name (CN): The FQDN (fully-qualified domain name) you want to secure with the certificate such as www.google.com, secure.website.org, *.domain.net, etc.
    • Domain Name (DN): Use a comma(s) to separate any additional domains (Subject Alternative Name) from your primary domain name (Common Name) that you wish to secure under the same SSL certificate; if necessary.
    • PrivateKeyExportable:$true: Leave this command marked as “$true” if you want to export the key pair and move the SSL certificate to another computer or device.
  4. Copy and paste the edited CSR details into the Exchange Management Shell utility, and press Enter. A Thumbprint should appear if the CSR was successfully created.
  5. Locate and open the newly created CSR from the specified location you choose in a text editor such as Notepad and copy all the text including:   

    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
     And
     -----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----

  6.  Return to the Generation Form on our website and paste the entire CSR into the blank text box and continue with completing the generation process.

Upon generating your CSR, your order will enter the validation process with the issuing Certificate Authority (CA) and require the certificate requester to complete some form of validation depending on the certificate purchased. For information regarding the different levels of the validation process and how to satisfy the industry requirements, reference our validation articles.

 

After you complete the validation process and receive the trusted SSL Certificate from the issuing Certificate Authority (CA), proceed with the next step using our SSL Installation Instructions for Microsoft Exchange 2007.