S/MIME certificates are required for singing emails sent by i-net Clear Reports. A signed email always contains the public part of the certificate so that the receiver can in turn send an encrypted email back to you. That is when the private certificate is used again to decrypt the received email.

The dialog allows to upload your private certificate and provide the optional password. Both, certificate and password, are stored securely on the i-net Clear Reports server.

Private certificates have to be created or obtained from external services. Even though you can create these certificates yourself using a self-signed certificate, it is recommended to use one of the many public services to create one. The reason for is, that they should have a root certificate that is trusted by many other services and PCs. Otherwise the emails may be rejected or displayed with an untrusted icon in the recipients email clients.

Here are two recommended services:

• Free for private service: Actalis
• Paid service Sectio, previously Comodo

Here are two manuals on how to create the certificates:

• How to Get a Free S/MIME Certificate
• Create Self-Signed S/MIME Certificates