31 March 2025 - IT Security Fast, Secure, Straight-forward: The New CertMine Certificate Portal
Starting today, the CertMine self-service portal for certificates is fully operational and available to all institutions. The application for S/MIME certificates for secure email communication for employees has been reactivated. As a new feature, IT representatives can now apply for, manage and renew TLS certificates for their servers quickly and easily on the CertMine portal. The automated process significantly reduces waiting times and allows straightforward management of all certificates.
Application for S/MIME certificates open again to employees
The new certification body can now issue S/MIME certificates in the required format. As a result, we have reactivated the issue of email certificates in CertMine. The process remains the same for employees, and they can apply for the certificates as before.
Server certificates: CaeSaR steps down, CertMine takes over
Until now, the service CaeSaR, launched a few years ago, has provided easy access to our certification body. It also issued the necessary TLS certificates for hundreds of servers to ensure secure data transmission within the university network and over the internet. This service is now being replaced by the new self-service platform CertMine. Along with the change of the certification body, the functions of CaeSaR have been integrated into the new platform.
What CertMine now offers: The self-service portal's new features
With the completely revamped and redesigned platform, certificate management within institutions can, for the first time, be offered entirely as a self-service. This will reduce waiting times and make the processes more efficient.
IT, EDP and certification officers can now not only request certificates, but also independently renew and manage them. In addition, the portal provides an overview of all your certificates with reminders for upcoming renewals.
Overview of the most important functions:
- Secure TLS certificate ordering and management
- Email updates on the status of your requests
- Overview of certificates requested
- Detailed display of the requested certificates and the option to download certificates as pem or p7b
- Consistent URLs for downloading certificates for automating renewals on servers
- Certificate requests that can be clearly assigned to an institution are automatically approved, meaning some certificates can be issued and used within one minute.
- Creation of groups that reflect the internal (project) structures of the institution
- Groups with assigned addresses are informed via email about the status of their certificate requests
- CertMine will be gradually expanded to include additional functions such as revoking and renewing certificates.
Previously, certificate requests, management and revocation needed to be handled on multiple platforms, and certificates had to be manually installed on the servers. CertMine now offers the great advantage of allowing you to manage all certificates on one platform at the university yourself and even to automate the renewal process. This is because CertMine creates a fixed download link the first time a certificate is requested, and it can be used on your server, e.g., in a script, to regularly import the latest certificate.
More information and a step-by-step How-to can be found in our Service Catalogue.