Knowledgebase

F5 BigIP

You can generate a key, a temporary certificate and CSR using Configuration utility. It is not recommended to use command line.

Note:
It is important to have a separate certificate for every domain name on every BIG-IP Controller or redundant pair of BIG-IP Controllers, regardless of how many non-SSL web servers are load balanced by the BIG-IP Controller. If you already run SSL, you can use existing keys to generate temporary SSL. However, you must obtain new certificates if the ones you have are not for the following web server types: Apache + OpenSSL Stronghold.

Generating CSR using the Configuration utility:

• click proxy in the navigation panel, new window will open,
• click the Create SSL Certificate Request tab,
• New SSL Certificate Request window will appear,
• in the Key Information section select minimum 2048-bit as a length key,
• type the name of the generated file (usually it is a domain name) with .key extension,
• enter required information:

Country: two letter country code, e.g. US
State or Province:
Locality: city
Organization: company name
Organization Unit: division name
Domain Name:
Email Address:
Challenge Password:
Retype Password:

• click Generate Certificate Request button.
• after a short pause, the SSL Certificate Request screen opens. Use it to start the process of obtaining a SSL from a CA and then to generate and install a temporary certificate.

Generating and installing temporary certificate:

• click the Generate Self-Signed Certificate button to create a self-signed certificate (it is just for testing, you must reinstall it with properly validated SSL from trusted CA),
• temporary certificate is created and installed on the BIG-IP Controller
• it allows to configure an SSL gateway for the SSL Accelerator.