How to generate SSL certificate & public key for encryption?

Question

I am working with some XYZ API provider.

What they are asking is the following:

• Certificate with 4096 bits public key for encryption (.pem or .cer format)
• SSL certificate for sending callback response on call back URL.

I generated the self-signed SSL certificate using OpenSSL & shared with them along with the private key (I know we shouldn't). They asked me to share a valid public key & SSL certificate.

I even generated a certificate & private key on DigiCert, but couldn't figure out how to generate a public key for SSL Certificate.

Can anyone kindly suggest how to generate Public key & private key for the SSL Certificate?

Kindly also suggest if I can use Comodo or DigiCert to generate a public key for the SSL certificate?

Answer 1

An SSL Certificate is a public key verified and signed by a Certificate Authority . You generate a public/private key pair, then from that generate a Certificate Signing Request (which includes the public key), which you send to the CA . It then signs that public key included in the CSR producing the certificate which it sends back to you. See also here .

It sounds like you already have this though, so you'd need to clarify what you're trying to achieve. It sounds like it may be a client authentication / mutual authentication scenario? If so, it depends on what the service provider requires - certificates for client authentication may need to be signed either by a public authority that the server trusts, or by the server itself.