OS X Mountain Lion: If your certificate isn’t being accepted
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If a certificate is not accepted, it may have expired or it may be invalid for the use to which it is being applied. For example, some certificates may be used for establishing a secure connection to a server but not for signing a document.
The most common reason a certificate isn’t accepted is that the certificate authority’s root certificate isn’t trusted by your computer. Before your computer will trust a certificate authority, you must add the certificate authority to a keychain and set the certificate trust settings.
- Some apps (such as Safari) display the root certificate from the certificate authority as part of the message from the certificate authority. In this case, drag the root certificate icon to the desktop.
- Drag the certificate file onto the Keychain Access icon or double-click the certificate file.
- Choose a keychain from the pop-up menu and click OK.
If you’re asked to provide a name and password, type the name and password for an administrator user on this computer.
- Select the certificate, and then choose File > Get Info.
- Click the Trust Settings disclosure triangle to display the trust policies for the certificate.
- To override the trust policies, select new trust settings from the pop-up menus.
Last Modified: Oct 20, 2015