Renewing unit certificates manually - Security Center 5.11

Security Center Administrator Guide 5.11

Applies to
Security Center 5.11
Last updated
2023-11-10
Content type
Guides > Administrator guides
Language
English
Product
Security Center
Version
5.11

You can manually install or renew certificates on selected units at any time, using the Hardware inventory task.

What you should know

Unit certificates that you renew manually can be logged in the Activity trails. To log manual certificate renewals, select Unit certificate changed under the General category in Config Tool > System > General settings > Activity trails.

Procedure

  1. From the homepage, open the Hardware inventory task.
  2. Right-click the column headers and click Select columns.
  3. Select the certificate-related columns which are hidden by default.
    Certificate status
    Certificate management status of the unit.
    Managed
    The certificate is managed by the system and is valid.
    Expired
    The certificate is managed by the system but has expired.
    Unmanaged
    The certificate is not managed by the system but can be. To enroll the unit for certificate management, select the unit and click Update certificate () at the bottom of the screen.
    Unsupported
    The certificate cannot be managed by the system. The reason might be that the unit model or extension does not support this feature, or that the unit firmware is not up to date.
    Certificate expiration
    Certificate expiration date. The date is shown only if the certificate is managed by the system. To view the certificate details in a separate window, select the unit and click View certificate () at the bottom of the screen.
    Last certificate update result
    Success or failure of the last certificate update carried out by the system.
  4. Set up the query filters to look for access control (or video) units.
    Open the Units filter and do one of the following:
    • Select All entities and select the Access Manager (or Archiver) roles you want to select all the units they control.
    • Select Access control units and click to apply a custom filter of your choice.
    • Select Video units and click to apply a custom filter of your choice.
  5. Click Generate report.
  6. Select the units you want to enroll for unit certificate management or certificate renewal, and click Update certificate ().
    The Update certificate dialog box opens.
    Update certificate dialog box showing advanced settings
  7. Under Certificate information, select one of the following:
    Inherit from Unit Assistant
    Use the information configured in the Unit Assistant role's Properties page.
    Use the certificate of the current unit
    Use the information found in the currently installed certificate. This option is only available if some of the selected units have a certificate installed by Security Center. The units that are still unmanaged are skipped when this option is selected.
    Custom
    Enter specific information for this scheduled task.
    Validity period
    This value is a CA setting. It can only be changed from the Unit Assistant role's Certificate profile page.
    Show advanced
    Click this button to show the optional properties defined in the Unit Assistant role, such as Country, State, Locality, and so on, that you can override here.
  8. If you selected Custom, enter the custom settings as required.
  9. Click Update.
  10. Confirm that the update was successful.
    Wait 10 to 20 seconds and refresh the report. Check the certificate status, last update result, and expiration to confirm that everything worked as expected.
    NOTE: After your system installs a certificate on a unit, you should no longer use the or any third-party tool to update the certificate.