Certificates and Keys

Salesforce certificates and key pairs are used for signatures that verify a request is coming from a customer org. They’re used for authenticated SSL communications with an external website, or when using a customer org as an Identity Provider.

Customers must generate a Salesforce certificate and key pair only if they’re working with an external website that wants verification that a request is coming from a Salesforce org.

Salesforce offers two types of certificates:

• Self-Signed: A self-signed certificate is signed by Salesforce. Not all external websites accept self-signed certificates.
• CA-Signed: A CA-signed certificate is signed by an external certificate authority (CA). Most external websites accept CA-signed certificates. Customers must first generate the certificate signing request to send to a CA, and then import the signed version of the certificate before they can use it.

See “About Salesforce Certificates and Keys” for more information.