Managing certificates

A digital certificate is an online identification credential, similar to a driver's license or passport. It verifies an individual with a guarantee of identity. Part of a digital certificate is digital signatures. Digital signatures are calculations based on an electronic document using public-key cryptography. Through this process, the digital signature is tied to the document being signed, as well as to the signer, and cannot be reproduced. With the passage of the federal digital signature bill, digitally signed electronic transactions have the same legal weight as transactions signed in ink.

Business Integration Connect uses digital certificates to verify the authenticity of business document transactions between the Community Manager and Participants. They are also used for encryption and decryption. Digital certificates were uploaded and identified during the configuration process.

Note:
Before you can use the procedures in this section, the certificates must be loaded into the system. For more information on loading the certificates, refer to the Hub Configuration Guide.

Certificates not loaded

If no certificates are loaded into the system, the following event codes will be generated every minute:

When certificates are not required by Business Integration Connect, these events may be suppressed by adding the following property to the bcg.properties file for the Document Manager:

bcg.event_log_exclude=240018,240019

Viewing and editing digital certificates

Use the following procedure to view a list of the digital certificates that have been defined for the system and to edit them.

  1. Click Account Admin > Profiles > Certificates. The Console displays the Digital Certificate List.
    Note:
    Red digital certificate dates indicate that the certificate has expired or is not yet valid.
  2. Click the icon next to a certificate to view the details. The Console displays the Viewing Certificate Details screen.
  3. Click the icon to edit the digital certificate.
  4. Update the following parameters in the screen, then click Save. Alternatively, you can delete the certificate by clicking Delete.

    Table 5. Digital Certificate Parameters

    Parameter Description

    Certificate Type

    Type of digital certificate:

    • Digital Signature Validation - authenticates the digital signature on documents coming from a Participant.
    • Encryption -- contains the public key for encrypting outgoing documents to a Participant.
    • SSL Client -- authenticates a Participant's certificate used for initiating an SSL connection.
    • Root Certificate -- certificate issued from certifying authority for establishing certificate chain.

    Description

    Text that describes the certificate.

    Status

    Enables or disables the certificate.

    Gateway Type

    Select the type of gateway associated with the certificate.

Disabling a digital certificate

If you do not want to use a digital certificate, use the following procedure to disable it.

  1. Click Account Admin > Profiles > Certificates. The Console displays the Digital Certificate List.
  2. Click the icon next to the certificate you want to disable.
  3. Click the icon to edit certificate details.
  4. For Status select Disabled.
  5. Click Save.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2003, 2004