Viewing Server Certificate Path in Mozilla Firefox

This section provides a tutorial example on how to view certificate path when visiting a 'https' Website in Mozilla Firefox. The top certificate in a certificate path is the root CA certificate, which is trusted automatically.

When a browser validates a server certificate, it will try to build a certificate path - an ordered list of certificates that satisfy these conditions:

Here is what I did to see the certificate path for https://login.yahoo.com Website on Mozilla Firefox.

1. Visit https://login.yahoo.com with Mozilla Firefox, and view the server certificate again.

2. Click the "Details" tab on the Certificate Viewer. A certificate path with 3 certificates shows up in the Certificate Hierarchy section:

DigiCert High Assurance EV Root CA         - Root CA certificate
 |- DigiCert SHA2 High Assurance Server CA - Intermediate CA certificate
     |- *.login.yahoo.com                  - Web server certificate

3. Click on "DigiCert High Assurance EV Root CA" in the path to see more about this root CA certificate.

4. Click on "DigiCert SHA2 High Assurance Server CA" in the path to see more about this intermediate CA certificate

5. Click on "*.login.yahoo.com" in the path. to see more about this HTTPS Web server certificate.

What do you think about this certificate path? Should we trust login.yahoo.com now? I think this is a valid certificate path and we should trust login.yahoo.com, because:

The picture below shows an example of a certificate path:

Certificate Path View - Mozilla Firefox
Certificate Path View in Mozilla Firefox

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)

 Introduction of HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure)

 Using HTTPS with Google Chrome

Using HTTPS with Mozilla Firefox

 Visiting "https" Website with Mozilla Firefox

 Viewing Server Certificate in Mozilla Firefox

 Server Certificate General Information

Viewing Server Certificate Path in Mozilla Firefox

 Exporting Server Certificate to File in Mozilla Firefox

 Viewing Pre-Installed Certificates in Mozilla Firefox

 Listing of Trusted Root CA in Mozilla Firefox

 Exporting Certificate to File from Mozilla Firefox

 Deleting Root CA Certificates from Mozilla Firefox

 Mozilla Firefox Displaying Certificate Error Page

 Adding Security Exception in Mozilla Firefox

 Failing to Import Root CA Certificates to Mozilla Firefox

 Certificate Trust Settings in Mozilla Firefox

 HTTPS with Microsoft Edge

 Using HTTPS with Apple Safari

 HTTPS with IE (Internet Explorer)

 Android and Server Certificate

 iPhone and Server Certificate

 Windows Certificate Stores and Console

 RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) and Server Certificate

 macOS Certificate Stores and Keychain Access

 Perl Scripts Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 PHP Scripts Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 Java Programs Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 .NET Programs Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 CAcert.org - Root CA Offering Free Certificates

 PKI CA Administration - Issuing Certificates

 Comodo Free Personal Certificate

 Digital Signature - Microsoft Word

 Digital Signature - OpenOffice.org 3

 S/MIME and Email Security

 PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) Terminology

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB