Quick question.. I run an OSX server here at work.. and it is saying my certificate has expired.. however I have not noticed any issues with running it with an expired certificate.. I tried researching what this certificate is and why it is important, how to renew etc.. however I am coming up with nothing. Anyone know anything about servers and these certificates?

Is it a certificate for a website or encryption? I havent done OSX but I have donen certificates for IIS webservices and encryption.

If it is for a website this wiki article will describe the basic idea: http://en.wikipedia....Ssl_certificate

Example below assuming it is for a web server, however encryption also works based off a "web of trust" concept.

Certificates are used as a way to confirm you are working with a trusted party when you visit their web site. For example if you you go to paypal, their website would have the following certificate:

The certificate above shows that you are indeed connecting to Paypal's servers and not someone else trying to look like Paypal. Certificates are about something called web of trust. Paypal requests a certificate from a certificate authority and the certificate authority confirms that it is truly Paypal requesting the certificate and issues them a certificate for a specific range of time. The certificate would then tell the client web browser that Paypal is a trusted site since it has a certificate that was issued by a trusted certificate authority, however when that certificate expires the web browser will usually give the user a warning that the certificate is expired and the connection may be no longer trusted. Most companies will renew their certificates by contacting the issuing company before they expire to avoid this.

Hope that helps.

Its for encryption I believe as I don't actually host any websites off of this server.. I have other servers that do that. I swear this job needs a full time IT guy not a part time, grad student position!

Well usually for encrytpiton there is a certificates server (either that same one or another)that you would request a new one from, again thats in a Microsoft world I dont know how Apple does it. Is there a certificate server in your network? What is your network is it all Apple, Microsoft, Novell? Or is it a mix?

Never mind its a server certificate.. its still expired... I forgot I was hosting a osx server website thing that no one ever uses here! I think the only thing they use it for is a calender..