If you received an email advising your certificate is about to expire or you are brought to a security warning screen when trying to access Mintsoft through a custom URL this could mean your SSL certificate needs to be renewed.
Note: You can still use om.mintsoft.co.uk to login to Mintsoft.
Providing an SSL certificate to support
To avoid any potential downtime, customers are required to submit a renewed SSL certificate to Mintsoft Support at least 7 days before its expiration. Server updates typically occur on Wednesday evenings.
SSL Certificate providers usually remind customers 30 days before their existing certificate needs to be renewed.
Creating the SSL Certificate Signing Request
You can create an SSL Certificate Signing Request by making use of an SSL Certificate and Key Management Tool:
We recommend using XCA: https://hohnstaedt.de/xca/index.php/download.
Select Typical when prompted for Setup Type when installing the software.
Once this has been done, please continue below:
Open the XCA tool and create a database.
Click on File then New Database.
Select the location for the Database and provide a FileName.
Click on Save.
Provide a password.
Create the certificate signing request.
Click on the Certificate signing Requests tab.
Click on New Request in the right panel.
Click on the Subject Tab.
Complete all the fields in the Internal Name section
Internal name = subdomain.
An Admin address must be used as the email address for example (admin@mycompany.com).
Click on Generate a New key.
Still in the Certificate signing requests tab, right-click on the request and select Export then Clipboard.
Copy this into a document for use when buying the SSL certificate.
Buy the SSL certificate
You can buy the SSL Certificate from a certificate vendor we recommend using Trustico but you can use a different vendor if you wish.
Note: Your website needs an SSL certificate If you're asking for any personal information. As the Domain is owned by the organisation, you will need to purchase the SSL certificate.
Convert the SSL certificate signing request and SSL certificate into PKCS#12 format
Import the SSL certificate received from the SSL vendor into the XCA tool to create the required PKCS#12 format to upload into Mintsoft.
Step 1: Import the SSL certificate into the XCA tool
Launch the XCA Tool.
Navigate to Certificate Signing Request Tab
Copy the string from the email received from the SSL Certificate Vendor.
Right Click in the white space of this tab.
Select Paste PEM Data.
A new window will appear, click on Import All.
Step 2: Export the SSL certificate into PKCS#12 format
Still in the XCA Tool, navigate to the Certificates Tab.
Find the relevant certificate and right-click.
Select Export then File.
This will open the Certificate Export file.
Save the file as *.pfx.
Click OK then OK again.
You will then be prompted to create a password.
This is the password that needs to be provided to Access as this is used when uploading the SSL certificate in Mintsoft.
Next Steps
Once this has been done, please raise a new case online and reference the title of this article along with the following information:
SSL Certificate | The SSL Certificate needs to be provided to Access in the PKCS#12 format. You need to provide the password that relates to this Certificate. |
Custom URL | Please provide us with your Custom URL on Mintsoft. |
Troubleshooting
Once Mintsoft Support has updated the SSL Certificate you may need to clear your cookies and web data. If you are on Google Chrome, please do the following:
Go to Chrome History (chrome://history/).
Then Clear browsing data (chrome://settings/clearBrowserData).
Click Advanced.
Change Time Range to All time.
Tick all options except Password and other sign-in data.
Click Clear data.