Dell Metered PDU LED - Manual (Page 144)

USER’S GUIDE
Mete
red Rac
k
PDU
141
Method 1: Use the default certificate auto-generated by the Rack PDU. When
you enable SSL, you must reboot the Rack PDU. During rebooting, if no server
certificate exists, the Rack PDU generates a default server certificate that is self-signed
but that you cannot configure.
Method 1 has the following advantages and disadvantages.
• Advantages:
– Before they are transmitted, the user name and password and all data to and from
the Rack PDU are encrypted.
– You can use this default server certificate to provide encryption-based security
while you are setting up either of the other two digital certificate options, or you can
continue to use it for the benefits of encryption that SSL provides.
• Disadvantages:
– The Rack PDU takes up to 1 minute to create this certificate, and the Web interface
is not available during that time. (This delay occurs the first time you log on after
you enable SSL.)
– This method does not include the authentication provided by a CA certificate (a
certificate signed by a Certificate Authority) that Methods 2 and 3 provide. There is
no CA Certificate cached in the browser. Therefore, when you log on to the Rack
PDU, the browser generates a security alert, indicating that a certificate signed by
a trusted authority is not available, and asks if you want to proceed. To avoid this
message, you must install the default server certificate into the certificate store
(cache) of the browser of each user who needs access to the Rack PDU, and each
user must always use the fully qualified domain name of the server when logging
on to the Rack PDU.
– The default server certificate has the serial number of the Rack PDU in place of a
valid common name (the DNS name or the IP address of the Rack PDU).
Therefore, although the Rack PDU can control access to its Web interface by user
name, password, and account type (e.g.,
Administrator , Device-Only User , or
Read-Only User ), the browser cannot authenticate which Rack PDU is sending or
receiving data.