Is a certificate signing request (csr) for websites only?
 

Greetings all,

I saw this code in commandlinefu.com website. I heard of this but never knew the application for using one except for a website.

If I create one, are there other ways to use them besides for websites?

Is it the same as using gpg to sign files, emails and etc?

Thx

I supposed to be more correct, it would be client-server applications. The server needs to verify that the client signing in is who they are, thus this is part of authentication. We use a private git which, while accessible from anywhere, also does require that we have a signature file even when we are in the office.

Sure you can generate all the certificates you want, but if no server knows anything about them, then they serve no purpose.

ok, thanks rtmistler for clearing it up for me. ;)

I use key pairs to login to remote machines without passwords--password login is considered pretty insecure these days, as it's hard to remember one complicated enough to thwart dictionary attacks--so you can create a key pair, and store them in your users .ssh folder on the local and remote systems, and then login with ssh -i ~/.ssh usersshkey remote.host and it never asks for a password! You can then turn off password authentication in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and your host is safe from dictionary attacks!

Yes, I know this and I currently do this now.

I just though that csr was something similar to public/private keys authenication. ;)

There are many applications that use HTTP as their protocol. Anything that implements a RESTful API or something similar. They are not web sites but benefit from making their communication more secure using HTTPS.

Examples: OpenStack, Ceph, Alfresco, Shopify.

this is not wrong.
http://www.cacert.org/ is using certificates for user authentication.
i believe the process is explained somewhere; good luck finding it, that site's a mess. maybe easiest if you send them a message and ask.

Certificate Signing Requests is part of public/private keys authentication: the part that asks for a certificate from a certificate authority--if you use a CA on the list of trusted CAs, then mail clients, web clients, vpn clients, and whatever other clients in a server/client architecture, won't give out any warnings about distrusted or unknown certificates... you can sign your own though, and each client can add your CA's certificate (you become your own CA when you sign your own) to their list of trusted certificates, and the warnings go away after that. In addition to the cacert documentation... the easyrsa tools that openvpn uses have straight forward documentation. Letsencrypt.org is another free CA, but the ACME and JOSE protocol that they automate their signing process with stinks.

I personally wish that gnuzilla or fsf, or entity like that could make a people's CA that could issue icon of a little tye-died figure, instead of green lock, and that browsers like ICECAT could display these little hippy icons on sites that were running and secured completely with free tools only -- in the gnu sense of a free tool...