Different digital certificate formats

Certificates can be exported in a number of different formats. This blog aims to clear up any confusion around what these formats are.

When exporting certificates in Windows the following options are available.

1. Export the private key:

• .PFX format - Personal Information Exchange - PKCS #12

2. Do not export the private key:

• .CER - DER encoded binary X.509 - use this for non-Windows devices that require the cert.
• .CER - Base-64 encoded X.509 - use this for Windows devices that require the cert.
• .P7B - Cryptographic Message Syntax Standard - PKCS #7 Certificates - use this when you want to export the issuing and root CA certs bundled with the server cert.