If you are a web administrator who has to renew SSL certificates every time your copy expires, you may find this neat tool to decode your existing Certificate Signing Request or CSR file.
Certificate Signing Request or CSR file is the file that must be sent to a certificate authority (like Verisign or Comodo) to get a digital identity certificate. Digital identity certificates are commonly used in e-commerce websites and is required if you want to enable https or secure http in your website.
The https protocol is identified in a user’s browser usually with a padlock icon. Most online consumers trust websites with https enabled because websites with digital certificates are sites that are identified as legit and makes online shopping secure with the use of data encryption.
Getting back to the topic, if you want to create a CSR, I have a guide already that discusses a step-by-step process to create your own CSR. In the tutorial, it shows how to create a self-signed certificate. To put it in a more understandable term, a self-signed certificate is like creating your own ID card signed by yourself. Not a very convincing proof to confirm your identity. While a certificate signed by a certificate authority like Comodo, your ID card is signed by let’s say, a goverment official or the president of your organization. The ID card signed by an authority is more trusted by public because the identity of the person is confirmed by a third-party body.
Now that we have identified what a CSR is, how do you check the contents of a CSR? If you will take a look at the insides of a CSR file, you will see something like this:
—–BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST—–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—–END CERTIFICATE REQUEST—–
It looks like gibberish, but it is an encrypted message which contains the information you put in when you created your CSR. And Comodo has an online tool which can be used to see what information are contained in a CSR file.
The online CSR Decoder tool is very simple to use. You just put the contents of your CSR file inside the box and click Decode. The results will be displayed in the lower box which tells you the information inside the CSR file.
Only the CSR file can be decoded, but the CRT file or the digital certificate cannot be decoded so easily.
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