How to generate CSR

CSR means Certificate Signing Request. CSR will be generated before giving it to CA authority.

To generate a CSR, you will need to create a key pair for your server. These two items are a digital certificate key pair and cannot be separated. If you lose your public/private key file or your password and generate a new one, your SSL Certificate will no longer match and you will need to replace the certificate.

Step 1: Create a Keystore and Private Key

Please use a recent version of the JDK for best security practices

Download from here.
You have to download jsse for high strength algorithms.

1. Create a certificate keystore and private key by executing the following command:
   
   keytool -genkey -alias <your_alias_name> -keyalg RSA -keystore <your_keystore_filename> -keysize 2048
   For example:
   
   
2. Enter and re-enter a keystore password.  Tomcat uses a default password of changeit.  Hit Enter if you want to keep the default
   password. If you use a different password, you will need to specify a custom password in the server.xml configuration file.
    
3. This command will prompt for the following X.509 attributes of the certificate:
   
   
   
   
   
   • First and last name (Common Name (CN)): Enter the domain of your website (i.e. www.myside.org) in the "first- and lastname" field.. It looks like "www.company.com" or "company.com".
   • Organizational Unit (OU): This field is optional; but can be used to help identify certificates registered to an organization. The Organizational Unit (OU) field is the name of the department or organization unit making the request.
   • Organization (O): If your company or department has an &, @, or any other symbol using the shift key in its name, you must spell out the symbol or omit it to enroll.  Example: XY & Z Corporation would be XYZ Corporation  
   • Locality or City (L): The Locality field is the city or town name, for example: Mountain View. 
   • State or Province (S): Spell out the state completely; do not abbreviate the state or province name, for example: California 
   • Country Name (C): Use the two-letter code without punctuation for country, for example: US or CA
     NOTE: Symantec certificates can only be used on Web servers using the Common Name specified during enrollment.
     For example, a certificate for the domain "domain.com" will receive a warning if accessing a site named www.domain.com
     or "secure.domain.com", because "www.domain.com" and "secure.domain.com" are different from "domain.com".
      

4. When prompted for the password for the private key alias, press Enter.  This will set the private key password to the same password used for the keystore from the previous step.
   Make note of the private key and the keystore password.  If lost they cannot be retrieved.
   
   
   
   For further information, please refer to the Tomcat Web site.

Step 2: Generate a CSR

1. Run the following command to generate the CSR:
   
   keytool -certreq -keyalg RSA -alias <your_alias_name> -file certreq.csr -keystore <your_keystore_filename>
   For example:
   
   
   
   NOTE: CSRs generated using the MD5 digest (signature) algorithm are no longer allowed.
   CSRs must be generated using SHA-1 or SHA-256/384/512Outdated versions of Java SDK may use the MD5 signature hash under RSA. It is recommended to upgrade to a more recent version of the Java SDK.
   
   Alternatively, try to specify SHA-1 using the following command:
   
   keytool -certreq -keyalg RSA -alias <your_alias_name> -file certreq.csr -keystore <your_keystore_filename> -sigalg SHA1withRSAFor example:
   
   
   
    
2. Verify your CSR
    
3. Create a copy of the keystore file. Having a back-up file of the keystore at this point can help resolve installation issues that can occur when importing the certificate into the original keystore file.
    
4. To copy and paste the file certreq.csr into the enrollment form, open the file in a text editor that does not add extra characters (Notepad or Vi are recommended).
   
   Make sure to include the "BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST" and "END CERTIFICATE REQUEST" header and footer.
   
   The text file should look like this:
   
   -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
   
   [encoded data]
   
   -----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----