Digital Certificates
Digital certificates are offered to faculty and staff and take many forms (SSL Certificates, Client Certificates, and Code Signing Certificates) to perform various tasks. Central management of digital certificates offers the reliability and resilience, so you can be assured that certificates can be recovered and revoked in the event of loss or tampering
For more information, and to learn about the various types of digital certificates, please review this wiki page.
At this time, the service does not include certificates for a role; for example, you cannot get a certificate for the Manager of Infrastructure. The certificate would be issued to an individual, such as Joe Smith (who is the Manager of Infrastructure).
The Digital Certificates service leverages InCommon's partnership with Comodo and includes unlimited certificates for one fixed annual fee (paid by ITS), including SSL, extended validation, client (personal), and code signing certificates. All of the domains owne or controlled by UT Austin (.edu, .net, .org., .com, and others) are covered.
Digital Certificates allow users to exchange information securely via e-mail as well as employ certificate-based encryption. The service does not provide the mechanisms to use the certificates directly. Instead, it is the information used by applications to ensure that data is secure and authentic.
- Dual-key certificates for encryption and digital signatures
- Managed public-key environment for reliability and support
- Works with any desktop application that supports certificates, on any operating system
- Publication of public keys in the university directory for easy access by colleagues
Digital certificates are available at no cost to faculty and staff with email addresses in supported domains (*utexas.edu and some vanity domains.)
Availability (by year): 99.9%
Supported Computing Environment
Technical Support
Both Tier 1 and Tier 2 technical support is available during normal business hours. Routine requests are typically addressed within one business day. Tier 3 requests will escalated to the vendor.
Tier 1
End users should start with Tier 1 technical support. Any user can call the UT Service Desk at 512-475-9400. Users with a departmental Technical Support Contact (TSC) should contact that individual.
Tier 2
Departmental support staff and the UT Service Desk may escalate issues to Tier 2 (the Information Security Office).
Maintenance
The vendor controls the maintenance schedule for the service. Scheduled maintenance is generally performed Tuesday or Saturday evenings.
User responsibilities
Subscribers (users) of the service and identified owners/administrators agree to be aware of and adhere to the university's Acceptable Use Policy.
In addition, Digital Certificates users agree to:
- Be aware of and adhere to UT System policies regarding Category-I data storage on portable computing devices
- Be aware of all information on the Digital Certificates page
- Follow the directions for requesting and downloading certificates described on the Web site
- Provide contact information for your department desktop support staff (if applicable) as requested by ITS for support
- Provide critical information to ITS in a timely manner when requested for purposes of resolving subscriber issues
In addition, departmental IT Support Staff agrees to:
- Assume responsibility for keeping contact information for their department's desktop support staff current and ensure that there are adequate backups
- Refrain from backing up signing keys