by Franck Martin, 2001/2002. A first hand approach on how to manage a certificate authority ( CA ), and issue or sign certificates to be used for secure web, secure e-mail, or signing code and other usages. Dear reader, like myself, you have intensively read the man pages of the applications of the OpenSSL ( the Secure Socket Layer protocol ) project, and like myself, you couldn't figure out where to start, and how to work securely with certificates. Here is the answer to most of your questions ( Franck Martin ).