In this recipe, we are going to open IIS Manager on the WIN2016IIS server and create a certificate request. We will also see how we can import a third-party SSL certificate.

To step through this recipe, we are going to create an SSL certificate request for a certificate provider. Also, we will see how we can import/install the certificate on IIS. You will need a running IIS 10.0 server and an administrator account, which will be used to make changes to IIS 10.0.

1. Go to WIN2016IIS and log in to IIS 10.0 Server. Open Server Manager and go to the Tools menu.
2. Open IIS Manager and click on the WIN2016IIS IIS server, as shown here:

4. In the Features view, there is a Server Certificates option. Open the server certificate, as shown here:

5. Go to the Actions pane. You can see that there is a Create Certificate Request option available. Click on Create Certificate Request, and the Request Certificate window will open. You have to fill in the details, as shown here:

6. Here you can fill the Common name (website name), Organization, Organizational unit (department), Address, and Country code. Click on Next. You will get the Cryptographic Service Provider Properties window:

7. Select the Bit length of encryption you need. In my case, I have selected 1024. Click on Next. Now you have to provide the local path and filename where you want to store the certificate request file:

8. We are storing our certificate request file in the administrator.CALL\Documents\Certificate request folder and the filename is cert-request-mysite.txt. Click on Finish.

9. Let’s open the cert-request-mysite.txt file:

10. You can see we have the certificate request created in encrypted format. Now you can send the file to a certificate authority to buy an SSL certificate.
11. Now let’s see how to import the certificate that we have purchased or generated.
12. Open IIS Manager and click on the WIN2016IIS IIS server. Go to the Actions pane and click on Import Certificate:

13. Now that you have the .pfx certificate, you can browse it and provide the password. You can also select the certificate store type: Personal or W eb Hosting. Click on OK.
14. You can import the .cer type certificate; in the IIS server Actions pane, click on Complete Certificate Request, as shown here:

15. Go to the local path of the certificate where you’ve stored it and give it a friendly name for identification purposes. Select the type– Personal or Web Hosting–and click on OK.

In this recipe, we opened IIS Manager on WIN2016IIS and created a certificate request to buy a third-party certificate. We also reviewed how we can import the third-party SSL certificate.