May 24, 2022
CertCentral to issue GeoTrust and RapidSSL DV certificates from new intermediate CA certificates
On May 24, 2022, between 9:00 am and 11:00 am MDT (3:00 pm and 5:00 pm UTC), DigiCert will replace the GeoTrust and RapidSSL intermediate CA (ICA) certificates listed below. We can no longer issue maximum validity (397-day) DV certificates from these intermediates.
Old ICA certificates
- GeoTrust TLS DV RSA Mixed SHA256 2020 CA-1
- GeoTrust TLS DV RSA Mixed SHA256 2021 CA-1
- RapidSSL TLS DV RSA Mixed SHA256 2020 CA-1
- RapidSSL TLS DV RSA Mixed SHA256 2021 CA-1
New ICA certificates
- GeoTrust Global TLS RSA4096 SHA256 2022 CA1
- RapidSSL Global TLS RSA4096 SHA256 2022 CA1
See the DigiCert ICA Update KB article.
How does this affect me?
Rolling out new ICA certificates does not affect your existing DV certificates. Active certificates issued from the replaced ICA certificates will remain trusted until they expire.
However, all new certificates, including certificate reissues, will be issued from the new ICA certificates. To ensure ICA certificate replacements go unnoticed, always include the provided ICA certificate with every TLS certificate you install.
No action is required unless you do any of the following:
- Pin the old versions of the intermediate CA certificates
- Hard code the acceptance of the old versions of the intermediate CA certificates
- Operate a trust store that includes the old versions of the intermediate CA certificates
Action required
If you practice pinning, hard code acceptance, or operate a trust store, update your environment as soon as possible. You should stop pinning and hard coding ICA certificates or make the necessary changes to ensure your GeoTrust DV and RapidSSL DV certificates issued from the new ICA certificates are trusted. In other words, make sure they can chain up to their new ICA certificate and trusted root.
See the DigiCert Trusted Root Authority Certificates page to download copies of the new Intermediate CA certificates.
What if I need more time?
If you need more time to update your environment, you can continue to use the old 2020 ICA certificates until they expire. Contact DigiCert Support, and they can set that up for your account. However, after May 31, 2022, RapidSSL DV and GeoTrust DV certificates issued from the 2020 ICA certificates will be truncated to less than one year.
November 16, 2021
Industry changes to file-based DCV (HTTP Practical Demonstration, file auth, file, HTTP token, and HTTP auth)
To comply with new industry standards for the file-based domain control validation (DCV) method, you can only use the file-based DCV to demonstrate control over fully qualified domain names (FQDNs), exactly as named.
To learn more about the industry change, see Domain validation policy changes in 2021.
How does this affect me?
As of November 16, 2021, you must use one of the other supported DCV methods, such as Email, DNS TXT, and CNAME, to:
- Validate wildcard domains (*.example.com)
- To include subdomains in the domain validation when validating the higher-level domain. For example, if you want to cover www.example.com, when you validate the higher-level domain, example.com.
- Prevalidate entire domains and subdomains.
To learn more about the supported DCV method for DV, OV, and EV certificate requests:
CertCentral: Pending certificate requests and domain prevalidation using file-based DCV
Pending certificate request
If you have a pending certificate request with incomplete file-based DCV checks, you may need to switch DCV methods* or use the file-based DCV method to demonstrate control over every fully qualified domain name, exactly as named, on the request.
*Note: For certificate requests with incomplete file-based DCV checks for wildcard domains, you must use a different DCV method.
To learn more about the supported DCV methods for DV, OV, and EV certificate requests:
- Supported DCV methods for validating domains on certificate OV and EV certificate requests
- Supported DCV methods for validating the domains on DV SSL certificate orders
Domain prevalidation
If you plan to use the file-based DCV method to prevalidate an entire domain or entire subdomain, you must use a different DCV method.
To learn more about the supported DCV methods for domain prevalidation, see Supported domain control validation (DCV) methods for domain prevalidation.
CertCentral Services API
If you use the CertCentral Services API to order certificates or submit domains for prevalidation using file-based DCV (http-token), this change may affect your API integrations. To learn more, visit File-based domain control validation (http-token).
November 6, 2021
Upcoming Schedule Maintenance
DigiCert will perform scheduled maintenance on November 6, 2021, between 22:00 – 24:00 MDT (November 7, 2021, between 04:00 – 06:00 UTC).
CertCentral infrastructure-related maintenance downtime
We will start this infrastructure-related maintenance between 22:00 and 22:10 MDT (04:00 and 04:10 UTC). Then, for approximately 30 minutes, the following services will be down:
DV certificate issuance for CertCentral, ACME, and ACME agent automation
- DV certificate requests submitted during this time will fail
- APIs will return a "cannot connect" error
- Failed requests should be resubmitted after services are restored
CIS and SCEP
- Certificate Issuing Service (CIS) will be down
- Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP) will be down
- DigiCert will be unable to issue certificates for CIS and SCEP
- APIs will return a "cannot connect" error
- Requests that return "cannot connect" errors should be resubmitted after services are restore
QuoVadis TrustLink certificate issuance
- TrustLink certificate requests submitted during this time will fail
- However, failed requests will be added to a queue for processing later
- Queued-up requests will be processed after services are restored, as required
This maintenance only affects DV certificate issuance, CIS, SCEP, and TrustLink certificate issuance. It does not affect any other DigiCert platforms or services .
PKI Platform 8 maintenance
We will start the PKI Platform 8 maintenance at 22:00 MDT (04:00 UTC). Then, for approximately 30 minutes, the PKI Platform 8 will experience service delays and performance degradation that affect:
- Signing in and using your PKI Platform 8 to perform in-console certificate lifecycle tasks.
- Using any of your PKI Platform 8 corresponding APIs or protocols (for example, SOAP, REST, SCEP, and EST) to perform certificate lifecycle operations.
- Performing certificate lifecycle tasks/operations:
- Enrolling certificates: new, renew, or reissues
- Adding domains and organizations
- Submitting validation requests
- Viewing reports, revoking certificates, and creating profiles
- Adding users, viewing certificates, and downloading certificates
- Certificate issuance for PKI Platform 8 and its corresponding API.
Additionally:
- APIs will return a "cannot connect" error.
- Certificate enrollments that receive "cannot connect" errors must be resubmitted after DigiCert restores services.
The PKI Platform 8 maintenance only affects PKI Platform 8. It does not affect any other DigiCert platforms or services.
Plan accordingly:
- Schedule high-priority orders, renewals, and reissues before or after the maintenance window.
- Expect interruptions if you use the APIs for immediate certificate issuance and automated tasks.
- To get live maintenance updates, subscribe to the DigiCert Status page. This subscription includes email alerts for when maintenance begins and when it ends.
- For scheduled maintenance dates and times, see DigiCert 2021 scheduled maintenance.
Services will be restored as soon as we complete the maintenance.
March 12, 2021
CertCentral Services API: Auto-reissue support for Multi-year Plans
We are happy to announce that the CertCentral Services API now supports automatic certificate reissue requests (auto-reissue) for Multi-year Plans. The auto-reissue feature makes it easier to maintain SSL/TLS coverage on your Multi-year Plans.
You can enable auto-reissue for individual orders in your CertCentral account. When auto-reissue is enabled, we automatically create and submit a certificate reissue request 30 days before the most recently issued certificate on the order expires.
Enable auto-reissue for a new order
To give you control over the auto-reissue setting for new Multi-year Plans, we added a new request parameter to the endpoints for ordering DV, OV, and EV TLS/SSL certificates: auto_reissue.
By default, auto-reissue is disabled for all orders. To enable auto-reissue when you request a new Multi-year Plan, set the value of the auto_reissue parameter to 1 in the body of your request.
Example request body:
Note: In new order requests, we ignore the auto_reissue parameter if:
- The product does not support Multi-year Plans.
- Multi-year Plans are disabled for the account.
Update auto-reissue setting for existing orders
To give you control over the auto-reissue setting for existing Multi-year Plans, we added a new endpoint: Update auto-reissue settings. Use this endpoint to enable or disable the auto-reissue setting for an order.
Get auto-reissue setting for an existing order
To help you track the auto-reissue setting for existing certificate orders, we added a new response parameter to the Order info endpoint: auto_reissue. The auto_reissue parameter returns the current auto-reissue setting for the order.
ICA certificate chain selection for public DV flex certificates
We are happy to announce that select public DV certificates now support Intermediate CA certificate chain selection:
- GeoTrust DV SSL
- Thawte SSL 123 DV
- RapidSSL Standard DV
- RapidSSL Wildcard DV
- Encryption Everywhere DV
You can add a feature to your CertCentral account that enables you to control which DigiCert ICA certificate chain issues the end-entity certificate when you order these public DV products.
This feature allows you to:
- Set the default ICA certificate chain for each supported public DV certificate.
- Control which ICA certificate chains certificate requestors can use to issue their DV certificate.
Configure ICA certificate chain selection
To enable ICA selection for your account:
- Contact your account manager or our Support team.
- Then, in your CertCentral account, in the left main menu, go to Settings > Product Settings.
- On the Product Settings page, configure the default and allowed intermediates for each supported and available DV certificate.
For more information and step-by-step instructions, see the Configure the ICA certificate chain feature for your public TLS certificates.
DigiCert Services API: DV certificate support for ICA certificate chain selection
In the DigiCert Services API, we made the following updates to support ICA selection in your DV certificate order requests:
- Updated the Product list endpoint
After adding the ICA certificate selection chain feature to your account, the Product list endpoint returns each ICA certificate's name and ID available to issue end-entity certificates for the supported DV products (see allowed_ca_certs). - Updated the Product limits endpoint
After you configure the allowed and default ICA certificates for a DV product, the Product limits endpoint returns the default issuing ICA (default_intermediate) and allowed issuing ICAs (allowed_intermediates) that certificate requestor with a given container and user role assignment can select. - Updated the Product info endpoint
The Product list endpoint now returns the name, ID, and certificate chain information for the issuing ICAs you can select when you request a given product (see allowed_ca_certs). - Added support for ICA chain selection to these DV certificate order requests:
Pass in the issuing ICA certificate's ID as the value for the ca_cert_id parameter in your order request's body.
Example DV certificate request:
For more information about using ICA selection in your API integrations, see DV certificate lifecycle – Optional ICA selection.
January 25, 2021
CertCentral Services API: Improved Domain emails endpoint
To make it easier to find the DNS TXT email addresses that receive validation emails from DigiCert for email-based domain control validation (DCV), we added a new response parameter to the Domain emails endpoint: dns_txt_emails.
The dns_txt_emails parameter returns a list of email addresses found in the DNS TXT record for the domain. These are the email addresses we find in the DNS TXT record on the _validation-contactemail subdomain of the domain being validated.
Example response with new parameter:
To learn more about the newly supported email to DNS TXT contact DCV method:
For information about validating the domains on DV certificate orders:
For information about validating the domains on OV/EV certificate orders:
January 13, 2021
CertCentral: Email to DNS TXT contact DCV method
We are happy to announce that DigiCert now supports sending an email to a DNS TXT contact for email-based domain control validation (DCV). This means you can add email addresses to the DNS TXT record for your domain. DigiCert automatically searches the DNS TXT records and sends the DCV email to those addresses. An email recipient needs to follow the instructions in the email to demonstrate control over the domain.
Note: Previously, DigiCert only sent DCV emails to WHOIS-based and constructed email addresses.
Industry changes
Contact information is becoming increasingly inaccessible in WHOIS records due to privacy policies and other constraints. With the passing of Ballot SC13, the Certificate Authority/Browser (CA/B) forum added Email to DNS TXT contact to the list of supported DCV methods.
DNS TXT record email contacts
To use email to Email to DNS TXT contact DCV method, you must place the DNS TXT record on the _validation-contactemail subdomain of the domain you want to validate. DigiCert automatically searches WHOIS and DNS TXT records and sends the DCV email to the addresses found in those records.
_validation-contactemail.example.com | Default | validatedomain@digicerttest.com
The RDATA value of this text record must be a valid email address. See section B.2.1 DNS TXT Record Email Contact in the Appendix of the baseline requirements.
For more information about Ballot SC13, the CA/Browser forum, and the email to DNS TXT contact DCV method:
October 22, 2020
CertCentral Services API: Documentation updates
We added a new request parameter to the CertCentral Services API documentation for DV certificate orders: use_auth_key. In accounts with an existing AuthKey, this parameter allows you to choose whether to check your DNS records for an AuthKey request token when you place a DV certificate order.
By default, if an AuthKey exists for your account, you must add an AuthKey request token to your DNS records before ordering a DV certificate. AuthKey request tokens enable immediate certificate issuance, decreasing the time you spend on certificate lifecycle management. However, there may be times you need to verify control over domains using email validation or a DigiCert generated token. In these cases, the use_auth_key parameter allows you to disable the check for an AuthKey request token at the order level, so you can use another method to prove control over the domain. For more information about domain control validation (DCV), see Domain control validation (DCV) methods.
To disable the AuthKey verification method for a DV certificate order, include the use_auth_key parameter in the JSON payload of the request. For example:
The following endpoints support the use_auth_key parameter:
- Order Multi-year Plan (for DV SSL certificates)
- Order GeoTrust DV SSL
- Order DV SSL
For information about using an AuthKey for immediate DV certificate issuance, see DV certificate immediate issuance.
Note: The use_auth_key parameter is ignored in requests for Encryption Everywhere DV certificates. All requests for Encryption Everywhere DV certificates require an AuthKey request token for DCV. Additionally, OV and EV SSL products do not support the use_auth_key request parameter.
June 3, 2020
CertCentral: Automatic DCV checks – DCV polling
We are happy to announce we've improved the domain control validation (DCV) process and added automatic checks for DNS TXT, DNS CNAME, and HTTP practical demonstration (FileAuth) DCV methods.
This means, once you've placed the fileauth.txt file on your domain or added the random value to your DNS TXT or DNS CNAME records, you don't need to worry about signing in to CertCentral to run the check yourself. We will run the DCV check automatically. Although, you can still run a manual check, when needed.
DCV polling cadence
After submitting your public SSL/TLS certificate order, submitting a domain for prevalidation, or changing the DCV method for a domain, DCV polling begins immediately and runs for one week.
- Interval 1—Every minute for the first 15 minutes
- Interval 2—Every five minutes for an hour
- Interval 3—Every fifteen minutes for four hours
- Interval 4—Every hour for a day
- Interval 5—Every four hours for a week*
*After Interval 5, we stop checking. If you have not placed the fileauth.txt file on your domain or added the random value to your DNS TXT or DNS CNAME records by the end of the first week, you will need to run the check yourself.
For more information about the supported DCV methods: