Load a personal certificate into a browser

The certificate should be imported into your web browser while accessing BalticGrid VO registration pages as you must authenticate with your certificate to a web site, and thus you would have your certificate available inside your web browser.

The certificate file you have on disk is suitable for Grid use, but needs to be converted to a different format for web browsers. This format is called PKCS#12, and files have the extension .p12. This format is special in the sense that the file contains both your public and your private key, and the combination is again protected with a pass phrase (here called export password).

The openssl program is used to convert between the different formats:

$ cd $HOME/.globus
$ openssl pkcs12 -export -in usercert.pem -inkey userkey.pem -out identity-package.p12

After making use of identity-package.p12 file, you should immediately delete it from disk for security concerns!

The file identity-package.p12 now contains both your certificate and your private key, and can be imported into the most popular browsers - Mozilla, Internet Explorer or Opera. Certificate stores for these browsers can be accessed following the paths below:

• Internet Explorer: Tools -> Internet Options -> Content -> Certificates
• Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Certificates
• Opera: Tools -> Preferences -> Security -> Manage Certificates

If you use Mac OS X and Safari you need to import your certificate in the application "Keychain Access" (located in /Applications/Utility). Launch this application, then choose File > Import and browse to your certificate. Safari will automatically read your certificate from Keychain

-- MarcoMambelli - 18 Mar 2008