Request extension processing in Active Directory Certification Authority

Hello S-1-1-0, Crypt32 is on air! Today I want to explain how ADCS Certification Authority processes extensions from incoming requests and certificate templates. Every X.509 V3 certificate contains certificate extensions to include extra information about certificate owner, issuer, intended usages, limitations/constraints. CA utilize multiple sources to generate extension list to be included in signed certificate, […]

Web server certificate enrollment with SAN extension

As part of joining PKI Solutions, several blog posts from my old site are re-posted here for visibility and thoroughness. Many of windows administrators requires to setup SSL on their web servers and mostly they wish to use certificates with the Subject Alternative Name extension that allows to map a single certificate to a multiple […]

You cannot download CA certificate from web enrollment pages

As part of joining PKI Solutions, several blog posts from my old site are re-posted here for visibility and thoroughness. When you try to download CA certificate from web enrollment pages you get a prompt message with unreadable proposed file name: Do you want to save certnew_cer?ReqID=CACert&Renewal=1&Enc=bin (1,09 KB) from And when you press ‘Save’ […]

Certificate renewal request is placed in pending state when Valid Existing Certificate is selected in certificate template

Hello S-1-1-0, here is a new blog post in a long time. Today I want to talk about the issue when “Valid existing certificate” does not bypass CA Manager approval and/or enrollment agent requirement during certificate renewal in Microsoft CA. In certificate template settings, Issuance Requirements we can configure additional requirements for enrollment and re-enrollment […]

Submitting Netscape SPKI (SPKAC) Cert Requests to ADCS

Recently I was contacted on Twitter with a question about Microsoft’s support of Signed Public Key and Challenge (Netscape SPKI) for certificate enrollment requests. I have long taught in my classes that there are a number of formats supported by ADCS for certificate requests. So I consulted one of the tables I talk about in […]