Certificates

Introduction

If you wish to join the NGS, or an international grid project, as an individual user, you will first require a personal certificate. These can be obtained from the UK Certification Authority (CA), who issue certificates to anyone in the UK e-Science community. These certificates are trusted not just by the NGS but by Grids all over the world.

A certificate is a way of identifying you to remote computers. It is simply a way of letting a resource know you are who you say you are (i.e. authenticate yourself). A Certificate can best be imagined as a “Digital Passport” which cannot be forged.

Apply for a personal certificate (to enable you to apply for an NGS account, for instance) Apply for a host certificate (for use on a system which will host a Grid service) Renew your certificate Taking care of your certificate Backing up (Exporting) your certificate Deleting your old certificate from your browser Importing a certificate into a browser Advanced certificate management Revoke your certificate Finding an RA CA news CA policy CA certificates CA Certificate Statistics International Grid Trust Federation

Important!

NEVER allow anyone else access to your Internet Browser. This will give them access to your certificate.

NEVER give anyone your certificate. Always keep it safe.

If you feel that any of the above happened to you, you should get your certificate revoked and apply for a new one.

You can find a summary of Certificate Obligations from "NGS Certificate Leaflets" section of the NGS Posters and Leaflets page.