Re: CA Certificates

On Thu, Apr 7, 2022 at 7:12 AM Brad Stone <bvstone@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

You got it right, Greg. With most TCPIP using SSL/TLS you need to import
the CA(s) used by the server system so your IBM i "trusts" the certificate
(to be more specific, it makes your system trust the issuers of the
certificate... ie.. the Certificate Authority).

To be more specific:

Your garden-variety website presents a certificate which points back to a
well-known Certificate Authority, usually through a chain.
That is, their cert is signed by A.COM whose cert is verified by B.COM
whose cert is verified by the top-level authority C.COM.
The reason us IBM i folks spend so much time installing certs via DCIM is
that our in-house certs and those of our EDI partners are often
*self-signed*, hence, *invalid* on the face of things.
So we need to pretend they are top-level Cert Authority certs so that our
apps will accept them.
Likewise our EDI partners need to tell their browsers, "yes, this
phoney-baloney self-signed cert should be accepted as valid" when our IBM i
servers present them.