Greetings,

I'm trying to find out how to load a CA certificate using Microsoft IE so
that I can use smtps with Entourage.

I have a FreeBSD mail server that I have configured with SSL/TLS sendmail
using a self signed certificate. That is, I signed my own certificate using
a CA that I created with openssl. I am able to use SSL smtp with Netscape
on my Mac as it was quite easy to import the CA certificate with that
application. It is another matter though with Entourage. Entourage errors
out telling me that I need to load the CA certificate using Microsoft IE.
I am unable however to load the certificate with IE. Unlike Netscape,
IE refuses to load the CA certificate, is says that it cannot verify the
identity. I'm trying to find out if there is some way to force IE to
accept this certificate.

Using Panther, the Apple mail program will accept the certificate if I
choose to continue after it prompts wanting to know if I would like to
accept the certificate. I'm unable to find a setting that will allow
me to accept the certificate permanently. That is, every time I use Apple
mail, it prompts for acceptance of the CA. Netscape mail seems
to be the only one that will work correctly.

Has anyone here resolved any of these issues and if so, how?

thanks for your time.

regards

--
John J. Rushford
j j r { a t } a l i s a { d o t } o r g
http://www.cs.du.edu/~jjr

read-the-signature[at]send-spam-to-dev-null.com wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I'm trying to find out how to load a CA certificate using Microsoft IE so
> that I can use smtps with Entourage.
>
> I have a FreeBSD mail server that I have configured with SSL/TLS sendmail
> using a self signed certificate. That is, I signed my own certificate using
> a CA that I created with openssl. I am able to use SSL smtp with Netscape
> on my Mac as it was quite easy to import the CA certificate with that
> application. It is another matter though with Entourage. Entourage errors
> out telling me that I need to load the CA certificate using Microsoft IE.
> I am unable however to load the certificate with IE. Unlike Netscape,
> IE refuses to load the CA certificate, is says that it cannot verify the
> identity. I'm trying to find out if there is some way to force IE to
> accept this certificate.
>
> Using Panther, the Apple mail program will accept the certificate if I
> choose to continue after it prompts wanting to know if I would like to
> accept the certificate. I'm unable to find a setting that will allow
> me to accept the certificate permanently. That is, every time I use Apple
> mail, it prompts for acceptance of the CA. Netscape mail seems
> to be the only one that will work correctly.
>
> Has anyone here resolved any of these issues and if so, how?
>
> thanks for your time.
>
> regards
>

This is a followup to my own post, sorry. Anyway I found on the Apple
Support site the article number 25555 and used it to load my CA certificate
into the keychain by first converting my CA certificate from pem format
to pkcs12 format using:

# openssl pkcs12 -export -in cacert.pem -inkey private/cakey.pem -out \
cacert.p12

Netscape mail is happy and now so is Apple Mail. Both use my CA cert and
establish a TLS/SSL connection quite happily. The only issue now is
Entourage. It sees the CA certificate in the keychain but wants a password to
decrypt the CA certificate. I did not use one. On windows, Microsoft IE and
outlook accept the CA certificate after I confirm that it is authorized.

Is anyone aware of some sort of bug with IE/Entourage on the Mac with regards
to importing these certificates? Guess I can switch to Apple mail instead
of Entourage.

--
John J. Rushford
j j r { a t } a l i s a { d o t } o r g
http://www.cs.du.edu/~jjr