How to generate a CSR for LiteSpeed

Updated on 18 Oct 2024

The instructions below walk you through generating a CSR on LiteSpeed. For more on CSRs and why your private key matters, see our Certificate Signing Request overview. If you have already generated the CSR and received your trusted SSL certificate, see our SSL installation instructions and skip the steps below.

Note: this guide assumes you have OpenSSL installed and are comfortable working at a command prompt.

1. Run the private key generation command

Generate an RSA private key by running:

openssl genrsa -out server.key 2048

Note: "server.key" sets the filename of your private key. You can rename it as you like, but keep the ".key" extension.

2. Run the CSR generation command

Generate the CSR by running:

openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr

Note: change "server.key" to match the filename you chose for the private key in step 1. You can rename the CSR as you like, but keep the ".csr" extension.

3. Enter the details

The command will prompt you for the following CSR details:

  • Common Name (CN): the fully qualified domain name you want the certificate to protect, such as www.google.com, secure.website.org or *.domain.net.
  • Organisation Name (O): the full legal name of your organisation, including any corporate identifier.
  • Organisational Unit (OU): your department, such as "Information Technology" or "Website Security".
  • Locality or City (L): the town or city where your organisation is legally registered. Do not abbreviate.
  • State or Province (S): the state or province where your organisation is legally registered. Do not abbreviate.
  • Country Name (C): the official two-letter country code (US, CH) where your organisation is legally registered.

4. Generate the order

That is the CSR created. It was saved automatically, under the filename you chose, in the directory you ran the command from.

Find it, open it in a plain text editor such as Notepad and copy all of the text, including:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
And
-----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----

Go back to the generation form on our website, paste the whole CSR into the empty text box and carry on through the generation process.

Once you generate your CSR, your order enters validation with the issuing certificate authority, which will ask whoever requested the certificate to complete some form of validation depending on the certificate purchased. For the different levels of validation and how to satisfy the industry requirements, see our validation articles.

After validation is complete and the certificate authority has issued your trusted SSL certificate, carry on with our SSL installation instructions.