[Discuss] server certificates for the https protocol

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2008-01-27 12:56-0800 Alan W. Irwin wrote:

> Could somebody give me a brief description of what server certificates are
> and the practical steps I should take to deal with invalid ones?
>
> For example, I am currently getting the following message from an svn commit
> to SF
>
> software at raven> svn commit .
> Error validating server certificate for 
> 'https://lasi.svn.sourceforge.net:443':
> - The certificate is not issued by a trusted authority. Use the
>   fingerprint to validate the certificate manually!
> Certificate information:
> - Hostname: *.svn.sourceforge.net
> - Valid: from Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:15:07 GMT until Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:15:07 
> GMT
> - Issuer: Equifax Secure Certificate Authority, Equifax, US
> - Fingerprint: fb:75:6c:40:58:ae:21:8c:63:dd:1b:7b:6a:7d:bb:8c:74:36:e7:8a
> (R)eject, accept (t)emporarily or accept (p)ermanently?
>
> Is this the fault of SourceForge or Equifax or is there a real security
> concern here?
>
> How do I "validate the certificate manually".

ping...

Is there anybody on this list with some working knowledge of https server
certificates they would be willing to share?

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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