Patent ID: 7698549

Claim:
A set of computer readable media containing computer instructions for operating a certificate proxy and installation system for providing a unified certificate request interface to a plurality of certificate authorities and for installing certificates to destination servers, the set of computer readable media comprising physical computer readable media upon which is stored the computer instructions executable by a computing system to perform a method comprising: presenting a uniform interface for receiving information pertaining to the submission of an individual certificate signing request to the plurality of certificate authorities, said interface providing a uniform set of entries for information items required in a certificate signing request generally; presenting a selectable object whereby a choice of one of the plurality of certificate authorities may be entered; receiving entry items through the uniform interface and a selection of a certificate authority; storing items of identification sufficient to identify a requesting entity to each of the plurality of certificate authorities; communicating with a certificate authority interface of the selected certificate authority, the communicating presenting at least the received entry items required by the selected certificate authority, the communication it its totality presenting a certificate signing request to the selected certificate authority, the communication further presenting items of identification whereby a requesting entity may be associated to the certificate signing request; receiving a certificate signed by a certificate authority generated from a certificate signing request by way of said network interface; identifying a destination network server corresponding to a received certificate signed by a certificate authority; determining a network server type, said network server types providing at least the type of server software installed to the identified destination network server; and performing a set of installation steps, the performed set of installation steps applicable to the determined network server type, the performance of the set of installation steps including the transferring of the received certificate to the destination network server by way of said network interface.