When you connect to a web server using secure SSL via https:// URLs, your web browser will attempt to verify the identity of the server. The way it does this is by checking with the known signature authorities, like Verisign. The problem is that it cost money to have your server listed so many sites use certificates that are self-signed or signed by untrusted signature authorities. This doesn't mean that there is a security problem, just that the web browser can't verify the identity of the web server. Now, if you were connecting to your bank's web site and got this error, then something is probably amiss. But, if you are connecting so a smaller site or personal web server via https then this may be normal behavior. The main CS server has a trusted certificate, so you shouldn't see this error when connecting to www.cs.indiana.edu. However, you may encounter it when connecting to other servers in the cs.indiana.edu domain (like cgi, webmail, or batson for svn access).

Below are instructions on how to proceed when using Firefox 3.x, Internet Explorer 7, and Safari 3.x. You should also be able to eliminate this problem by importing the CS certificate

Firefox 3.x

When this happen with firefox, you will get an error message like the following:

This is normal and in order to continue you should do the following:

1. Click on the link at the bottom of the error page that says "Or you can add an exception...".
2. Click on "Add Exception..."
3. Click on "Get Certificate"
4. Verify that the "Permanently store this exception" box is checked
5. Click on "Confirm Security Exception"

Internet Explorer 7

When this happen with IE, you will get an error message like the following:

This is normal and in order to continue you can just click on "Continue to this website (not recommended)". If you want to prevent this error from happening each time you use IE, you can do the following to add a permanent exception

1. Click on the box to the right of the web address, which has "Certificate Error" in it.
2. In the Untrusted Certificate box, click on View Certificates at the bottom.
3. Click on the General tab and then click on Install Certificate
4. At the Welcome to the Certificate Import Wizard, click Next
5. With "Automatically select the certificate store based on the type of certificate" selected, click Next
6. At the "Completing the Certificate Import Wizard" click Finish.
7. You should see the Certificate Import Box, which should say "The import was successful". Click OK.
8. Click OK to clear the Certificate Import Wizard.

Safari 3.x

When this happen with Safari, you will get an error message like the following:

This is normal and in order to continue you can just click on "Show Certificate" which will show something like the following:

At this point, you can do the following:

1. Check the "Always Trust ..." checkbox.
2. (Optional) Expand "Trust" and "Details" and verify that it says "Always Trust" in the Trust section.
3. Click "Continue".
4. If prompted, login with your local username and password and click "OK".

There have been reports of Safari hanging after making this change so if this happens just "Force Quit" and you should be fine after that.

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