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When generating a CRS for private purposes (non-comercial) which of the fields are mandatory?

   Country Name (2 letter code) [US]: US
   State or Province Name (full name) []: Texas
   Locality Name (eg, city) []: Houston
   Organization Name (eg, company) []: Your Company Inc
   Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []: Your Department
   Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []: secure.yourcompanyname.com
   Email Address []:

According to some sources, Organization Name is a required filed, but I am not part of any organization. Can I leave this empty?

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1  
None of them are required (well, other than common name, else it won't work...) But you'll have to edit OpenSSL config files to make it not prompt & include some of those fields. –  derobert Dec 2 '13 at 16:45

2 Answers 2

up vote 1 down vote accepted

If the certificate is strictly for private use, then the fields to use (and how the fields are interpreted) is strictly up to you.

Many implementations (browsers, etc) use the Common Name to refer to the actual subject of the certificate, and ignore everything else. In fact, most CAs will only include in the signed certificate those fields which the CA actually verified accurate. So unless the CA actually verified your organization name within the company, that field will be omitted.

So for example, the cheapest certificates, typically issued automatically with only an email loop to verify domain ownership, will list the domain in the CN, and leave the other fields out, including the organization name. This has no impact on day-to-day usage of the certificate.

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up vote 2 down vote

Yes, but it's not recommended. Just put your personal name there. There is no harm in leaving it blank for personal use.

That said, different software may require different fields, so it depends in what context and with what software you're going to be using the certificate in.

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