Explaining Your Web Server to Your Users

by Mark Wilkinson

$Id: www-explain.html,v 1.1 2002/03/14 17:42:18 mhw Exp $

Introduction

So, you've set up an SSL web server (or you're thinking about it), and you now need to tell your users how to use it. If you've gone out and paid one of the commercial certification authorities to sign your keys then it's a simple case of telling your users the https URL of your server. If you decided to follow my instructions and set up your own certification authority, though, you'll need to explain how to get rid of some of the security warnings that your users' web browsers will display when they see your certificate. Here you'll find some documents that I've put together to explain this stuff in the past.

Documentation Overview

Here's a map of the files that I've prepared:

• index.html - main index
• secure-ie.html - adding CA certificates to Internet Explorer
• ca-rsa.crt - the CA certificate itself
• webdav-w2k.html - setting up WebDAV access using Windows 2000 Web Folders
  • img/security-alert.png
  • img/internet-options-content.png
  • img/certificates.png
  • img/certificates-before.png
  • img/root-cert-store.png
  • img/certificates-after.png

You'll need to customise these files for your own use. I've used the string "TO_BE_ADDED" in the places where you'll need to edit the HTML files. You'll also need to capture your own versions of some of the images to put appropriate content in them. The main ones you should look at are: img/certificates-before.png, img/root-cert-store.png and img/certificates-after.png.