What is a Chained Certificate, Intermediate Certificate, Root Certificate, etc…?
A certificate authority issues certificates in the form of a tree structure. A root certificate is the top-most certificate of the tree. All certificates below the root certificate inherit the trustworthiness of the root certificate. Many software applications, such as web browsers, include certain root certificates that are automatically deemed trustworthy. Any certificate signed by a trusted root certificate will also be trusted. In turn, the signed certificate can sign another certificate and it will also be trusted as long as the browser has all of the certificates in the chain to link it up to a trusted root certificate. Any certificate in between your certificate and the root certificate is called a chained or intermediate certificate. These must be installed to the web server with the primary certificate for your web site so that user’s browers can link your certificate to a trusted authority. Most certificate authorities use chained certificates for security purposes and most w
