Processing Certificate Requests

To process a certificate request

1. Request reception. The certificate request is received by an intermediary application, which formats it into a PKCS #10 format request and submits it to the Server Engine.
   
   
2. Request approval. The Server Engine calls the Policy Module, which queries request properties, decides whether the request is authorized or not, and sets optional certificate properties.
   
   
3. Certificate formation. If the request is approved, the Server Engine takes the request, and any properties requested by the Policy Module, and builds a complete certificate.
   
   
4. Certificate publication. The completed certificate is then passed to an exit module to be published in a directory service, or given back to the user.

The following diagram illustrates how a certificate request is processed by Microsoft® Certificate Server:

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