Digital Certificates

To use LCG you must possess a personal digital certificate from a Certification Authority (CA) recognised by LCG. The certificate will be needed both during the registration process and also when you submit jobs to the grid.

LCG accepts certificates issued by CAs who are accredited by the International Grid Trust Federation (IGTF) and the Fermilab KCA. Consult the table of CA links below to choose one appropriate to your location.

Certification Authorities (CA) recognised by LCG
Most people should be able to get a certificate from their national CA. See this list to locate your national CA from the International Grid Trust Federation.
CERN staff and users without a certificate from a national authority should be able to obtain a CERN certificate - see here if you are eligible. If you are, then you can r equest a certificate.
US - FNAL
ONLY IF NONE...... of the CAs above are able to issue you with a certificate, and you are part of.......
.......an LHC experiment (Note: most people should be able to use one of the IGTF CAs given above.)	LCG "catch-all" CA website.
.......a non-LHC EGEE Virtual Organisation (Note: most people should be able to use one of the IGTF CAs given above.)	CNRS GRID-FR CA "catch-all" website.

Important: The private key associated with your certificate should:

be stored in a file which is only readable by you
not be stored somewhere visible on the network (e.g. not in an NFS mounted directory)
be protected by a strong password. Help with choosing a secure password is available here.
never shared with anybody else.

Failure to observe the above rules could result in you being denied access to LCG