Managing Management Certificates in Azure

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In Azure when are going to access the azure resources the Management Certificates plays a very vital role.
But the the question comes, ***“Why the certificate is required?”

The Answer to this question is in Windows Azure Security certificates play a key role. There are two different types of certificates which can secure your application/services: “Service Certificate-SSL” and “Management Certificates”.

But here we require the management certificates because the Window Azure tool for Microsoft Visual Studio use management certificate to authenticate developers for window azure deployments.  You have to provide the certificate in X.509 (.cer) format. 

For creating the X.509 Certificate, Please have a look into the following blog
"http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/netfxnetcom/thread/a3d14d46-946f-4cd9-932b-487cc487ddc1" 

Once you have created the certificate. You have to follow the following to access the azure resources.

**Local Machine Installation:- **

For installing in Local machine follow these steps:-

1)      Double click the certificate “xxxxx.cer”.

2)      Click on Install Certificate Button.

3)      Press Next.

4)      In Certificate Store, select “Place all certificates in the following store” radio button.

5)      Select the “Personal” store after clicking Browse button.

6)      Press Next button and install the certificate

You can verify the same by “Cert.msc” command.

Azure Installation:

After installing the certificate in local machine now we have to install in the Window azure portal.

For installing in Azure Management Portal follow these steps:-

1)      Navigate to Azure Portal http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/ .

2)      Login with your Live ID credentials which is having the azure subscription.

3)      Go to Setting Tab

4)      Click on Upload Button.

   

5)      Upload the same certificate to the Portal.

Now you are done with installing the certificate step. So now you are not going to get any certificate issues while accessing windows azure.

Gourav Nayyar
Technical Lead
gourav.nayyar@happiestminds.com
Happiest Minds Technologies Pvt. Ltd.