Creating Validated StartSSL Certificates

this is just a bunch of steps i can't seem to remember each time i need a new certificate.. so i write it down in here :)

first of all you need to create a user account at startssl.com and download and install the mime certificate from them that will authenticate you against their service.

now you need to run the validations vizard and validate your ownership of the domain you need a certificate for

to create an ssl certificate you need to first create a Certificate Signing Request on your server (it's running ubuntu in my case)

1. create a key

   openssl genrsa -out server.key 1024

   this creates a key without a password which you most likely want to use if you need it for a webserver or such. it also means, that if your key is stolen anybody can run another service with the same key, so it is less secure..

2. create the CSR

   openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr