# Certificate Request

When you fill out the Certificate Request, the public key you generate becomes incorporated in the request itself and, eventually, into the digitally signed local certificate you receive back from the Certificate Authority. This certificate is essentially your ID card.

### To Request a New Certificate

1. Under the heading Certificate Subject Information, enter the following information:

Name: The key holder's name.

Phone: The key holder's telephone number.

Unit/Department: The key holder's unit or department.

Organization: The key holder's organization.

County/Locality: The key holder's county or locality.

State: The key holder's state.

Country: The key holder's country.

E-mail: The key holder's e-mail address.

IP Address: The key holder's IP address.

FQDN: The fully-qualified domain name of the device.

2. Under the heading Key Pair Information, select RSA or DSA encryption, and then select the key length from the Create new key pair of_lengthdrop-down list. The choices are 512, 786,1024,or 2048.

3. Click Generate.

The security device generates a PKCS #10 file, which you can save to a file or submit for the certificate request. See Certificate Request Submit.

Contact your certificate authority to inform them of your certificate request. They must authorize the certificate request before you can download the certificate.

Note: Before generating a public/private key pair, make sure that your Certificate Authority can support the key length you select. Also, note that key lengths greater than 1024 may require generation times longer than 10 minutes.