How Do I Distribute the SBS 2008 Self-Signed SSL Certificate to My Users?

  [Today's post comes to us courtesy of Shawn Sullivan and Rituraj Choudhary]

Today’s post discusses the certificate distribution package on SBS 2008. The SBS 2008 self-signed SSL certificate that is installed in IIS 7 is a leaf certificate; meaning that the Issued to and Issued by names are not the same. Unlike SBS 2003, Certificate Services is installed as part of setup and a root Certificate Authority (CA) certificate is created to validate the server. If a client machine or mobile device trusts the SBS root CA certificate, it will trust any leaf certificate the CA issues. Therefore, if you change your external domain name and create a new self-signed SSL certificate through the Internet Address Management Wizard (IAMW), these clients and mobile devices will not have to install any new certificates into their stores. Here is an example of the SBS 2008 self-signed certificate:

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Because we are now using a CA to assign our self-signed certificate, the distribution process has changed. Unlike the self-signed SSL certificate in SBS 2003, clients can no longer download and install the certificate when browsing RWW or OWA to trust it. To ease the process of certificate distribution to clients and mobile devices, a certificate installation package is created and shared on the server when you run the Internet Management Address Wizard (IAMW). Each time you run the IAMW, this certificate package is updated. It is accessible from the following paths:

  • Local Disk: c:\users\Public\Public Downloads
  • UNC: \\servername\Public\Public Downloads
  • UNC: \\sites\Public\Public Downloads

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The package contains both the root certificate and the InstallCertificate.exe application. Users can download either the compressed or uncompressed version of the package to a USB key, floppy, or CD ROM from the UNC path to install on their machines at home. The following is an example of a root certificate in this package:

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Installing the Package

InstallCertificate.exe will install the certificate into the machine’s Trusted Root Certification Authority store when you select Install the certificate on my computer . You must be running Vista or XP SP2 or later.

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If installing on a mobile device, it must be running Windows Mobile 6 or later. You must connect the device to a machine running either ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center. The certificate will be copied to the device’s root drive and then installed natively by the Windows Mobile OS.

Domain joined clients do not need to install this package; they will already have this certificate in their trusted store.

The root CA certificate is valid for 5 years and the leaf certificates are valid for 2 years. Upon expiration, run the Fix My Network Wizard in the SBS Console to renew them.

**This package is not used if you have installed a 3rd party certificate from a trusted certificate authority using the Add a trusted certificate wizard**