{"id":24264,"date":"2022-02-02T14:27:24","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T14:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1-grid.com\/knowledge\/vps-how-to-create-a-certificate-signing-request-csr-for-ubuntu-server\/"},"modified":"2025-05-28T06:08:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T06:08:03","slug":"vps-how-to-create-a-certificate-signing-request-csr-for-ubuntu-server","status":"publish","type":"ht_kb","link":"https:\/\/1grid.co.za\/knowledge\/vps-how-to-create-a-certificate-signing-request-csr-for-ubuntu-server\/","title":{"rendered":"VPS: How to create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) for Ubuntu Server"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">This article provides you with steps to generate a CSR on your Ubuntu VPS server.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\"><strong>Step 1 &#8211; Generate Private Key<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">The OpenSSL package and is usually installed under \/usr\/local\/ssl\/bin. If the utility was installed elsewhere, these instructions will need to be adjusted accordingly.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Type the following command at the prompt:<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<pre><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">openssl genrsa -des3 -out &lt;private key file name&gt;.key 2048<\/span><\/pre>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"fr-fic fr-dii alignnone\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/cdn.freshdesk.com\/data\/helpdesk\/attachments\/production\/33042182676\/original\/OftbWDurR9pQDWEF5s8gSCLUdzcKwVM8Wg.png?1592486402\" alt=\"How to create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) for Ubuntu Server\" width=\"491\" height=\"117\" data-attachment=\"[object Object]\" data-id=\"33042182676\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>NOTE:\u00a0<\/strong>All certificates that will expire after October 2013 must have a 2048 bit key size.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>NOTE:<\/strong> To bypass the pass phrase requirement, omit the -des3 option when generating the private key. If the private key is left unprotected, 1-grid recommends access to the server be restricted so that only authorized server administrators can access or read the private key file.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\"><strong>Step 2 &#8211; Certificate Signing Request (CSR)<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Type the following command at the prompt:<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<pre><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">openssl req -new -key &lt;private key file name&gt;.key -out &lt;csr file name&gt;.csr <\/span><\/pre>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"fr-fic fr-dib\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/cdn.freshdesk.com\/data\/helpdesk\/attachments\/production\/33042182677\/original\/fAWPN91Y23ohurqW2kuH2njT3PFQY3AD9w.png?1592486402\" alt=\"\" data-attachment=\"[object Object]\" data-id=\"33042182677\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">This command will prompt for the following X.509 attributes of the certificate:<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"fr-fic fr-dib\" style=\"box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 238px; width: 637px;\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/cdn.freshdesk.com\/data\/helpdesk\/attachments\/production\/33042182679\/original\/n-rkdDLhiPb4pnoG7ZHPI7TTcQxWdXVjMA.png?1592486405\" alt=\"\" width=\"637\" data-attachment=\"[object Object]\" data-id=\"33042182679\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Country Name:<\/strong> Use the two-letter code without punctuation for country, for example, RSA\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>State or Province:\u00a0<\/strong>Spell out the state completely; do not abbreviate the state or province name. \u00a0For example Western Cape, not WC<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Locality or City:<\/strong> The Locality field is the city or town where the organization is headquartered spelled in full. For example <strong>Cape Town<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Company:<\/strong> If the company or department has an &amp;, @, or any other symbol using the shift key in its name, the symbol must be spelled out or omitted, in order to enroll. Example: XY &amp; Z Corporation would be XYZ Corporation or XY and Z Corporation.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Organizational Unit:\u00a0<\/strong>This field is optional, but can be used to help identify certificates registered to an organization. The Organizational Unit (OU) field is the name of the department or organization unit making the request. To skip the OU field, press Enter on the keyboard.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Common Name:<\/strong> The Common Name is the Host + Domain Name. It looks like &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.company.com\" rel=\"noreferrer\">www.company.com<\/a>&#8221; or &#8220;company.com&#8221;. \u00a0RapidSSL certificates issued to the www subdomain will also include the base domain as a Subject Alternative Name.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">NOTE: Please do not enter an email address, challenge password or an optional company name when generating the CSR<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Once the CSR has been created proceed to enroll for the certificate. \u00a0When prompted for the CSR, please open the file with a plain-text editor (Notepad, Vi) and copy\/paste the full text of the CSR into the order form.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\"><strong>Step 3 &#8211; Backup the private key<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">We recommend backing up the .key file and storing the corresponding passphrase. A good choice is to create a copy of this file onto a diskette or other removable media. While backing up the private key is not required, having one will be helpful in the instance of server failure.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"box-sizing: border-box; color: #62615e; font-family: Muli, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; margin-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article provides you with steps to generate a CSR on your Ubuntu VPS server. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Step 1 &#8211; Generate Private Key \u00a0 The OpenSSL package and is usually installed under \/usr\/local\/ssl\/bin. If the utility was installed elsewhere, these instructions will need to be adjusted accordingly. \u00a0 Type&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"ht-kb-category":[1178,21],"ht-kb-tag":[179,247,255,480,898,1056,1106],"class_list":["post-24264","ht_kb","type-ht_kb","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","ht_kb_category-servers","ht_kb_category-ssl-certificates","ht_kb_tag-certificate","ht_kb_tag-create","ht_kb_tag-csr","ht_kb_tag-how-to","ht_kb_tag-server","ht_kb_tag-ubuntu","ht_kb_tag-web-hosting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How To Create A Certificate Signing Request: Ubuntu Server<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) on Ubuntu VPS using our step by step guide: 1-grid Knowledge 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