ABSTRACT
The purpose of this section is to describe the need for the public key infrastructure (PKI) and then walk the reader through the process of creating a PKI that meets their specific needs. The PKI is a term that is constantly bandied about as being something that is “essential” and “necessary” to the long-term growth of the Internet and electronic information processing. Many people, however, would be hard-pressed to walk into a network and say, “this is part of the public key infrastructure” while pointing at a piece of hardware on a rack of equipment.
