Enabling Client Certificates

You can require users attempting to access your Web site to log on with a client certificate. Requiring a client certificate, however, does not protect your content from unauthorized access. Any user with a client certificate can establish a secure connection and access your resource. To protect your Web content from unauthorized access you must do either of the following:

Important

 

To enable client certificates
  1. In the Internet Information Services snap-in, select a Web site, directory, or file, and open its property sheets.
  2. If you have not previously obtained a server certificate, select the Directory Security property sheet, under Secure Communications, click Server Certificate. For more information, see Using the New Security Task Wizards.
  3. If you have previously obtained a server certificate, select the Directory Security or File Security property sheet, then under Secure Communications, click Edit.
  4. In the Secure Communications dialog box, select the Require secure channel (SSL) check box. Requiring a secure channel means that user cannot connect to this site without using a secure link (that is, the link's URL must begin with https://).
  5. Under Client certificates select one of the following to enable client certificate authentication:

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