Skip to main content

Key concepts

The key concepts of the Certificate Manager service are as follows.

Certificate​

You can register your SSL certificates with KakaoCloud and apply them to various services. The following information is required when registering a certificate:

  • Certificate private key: A private key paired with the certificate and used to decrypt encrypted communications. Store it securely because exposure poses a significant security risk.
  • Certificate body: The issued certificate body in PEM format.
  • Certificate chain (optional): A chain consisting of root and intermediate CA certificates. Clients such as browsers use this chain to validate the trust path of the server certificate.

Certificate ID​

A unique value automatically generated when you register a certificate. It identifies the certificate in Certificate Manager and specifies the certificate to use with Load Balancing, Kubernetes Engine, and other services. It remains unchanged until you delete the certificate.

Domain​

The domain name for which the certificate can be used. For example, when accessing example.com, use a certificate that includes that domain.

Expiration date​

The date on which the certificate expires. After the certificate expires, TLS connections might fail or client browsers might display security warnings. To prevent connection issues caused by expiration, register a new certificate and replace the certificate used by the listener before the expiration date.

Listener​

A listener defines the protocol and port on which a load balancer receives requests. For example, an HTTPS : 443 listener receives HTTPS requests on port 443 and has a certificate attached for those requests.

Certificate role​

The role of a certificate attached to a listener is displayed as Default or Additional. An HTTPS/TLS listener must have one default certificate attached. The default certificate cannot be disassociated on its own, but it can be replaced with another certificate. An additional certificate is attached to the listener in addition to the default certificate.