Setting up certificates for the first time

The left frame of Digital Certificate Manager (DCM) is the task navigation frame. You can use this frame to create and open certificate stores and manage the certificate upload and download locations.

Which tasks are available depends on which certificate store (if any) you work with and your user profile special authorities. Most tasks are available only if you have *ALLOBJ and *SECADM special authorities. To use DCM to verify object signatures, your user profile must also have *AUDIT special authority.

When you use Digital Certificate Manager (DCM) for the first time, no certificate stores exist. Consequently, when you initially access DCM, Open Certificate Store shows only Other as a choice of certificate store to open.

The top frame of Digital Certificate Manager is the actions navigation frame. The actions available on this frame vary based on the certificate store that is open and if managing certificates or application definitions.

You must first access the appropriate certificate store before you can begin working with most certificate and application management tasks. To open a specific certificate store, click Open Certificate Store in the navigation frame. If the required certificate store does not exist, click Create Certificate Store in the navigation frame.

Getting started

Although you may want to use certificates to accomplish a number of security-related goals, what you do first depends on how you plan to obtain your certificates. There are two primary paths that you can take when you first use DCM, based on whether you intend to use public certificates versus issuing private certificates.