Viewing Certificate Requests in the CA Database

In this blog I will show you how to view certificate requests in the CA database. This can be useful when troubleshooting. It is especially helpful if scenarios where you have to identify what process is requesting the certificate.

Step 1: Open the Certification Authority MMC (certsrv.msc)

Step 2: Select the View menu and then Add/Remove Columns…

Step 3: In Available columns select Binary Request and then click Add

Step 4: Click OK

To view a request:

Step 1: Navigate to Issued Certificates

Step 2: Identify the certificate you are interested in viewing its associated request

Step 3: Right-click on the certificate and select All Tasks then Export Binary Data…

Step 4: Select Binary Request

Step 5: Leave View formatted text version of the data as selected

Step 6: Click OK

Now you can view the request and identify information such as the User and Machine that made the request as well as the service that initiated the request

Below is a video that covers the same topic covered in this article:

If there are any topics you would like me to cover in future blog posts, reach out to me through my contact page.

-Chris