Requesting a public certificate

To request an ACM public certificate (console)

1. Sign into the AWS Management Console and open the ACM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/acm/home.

   Choose Request a certificate.

2. On the Request a certificate page, choose Request a public certificate and Request a certificate to continue.

3. On the Add domain names page, type your domain name. You can use a fully qualified domain name (FQDN), such as www.example.com, or a bare or apex domain name such as example.com. You can also use an asterisk (*) as a wild card in the leftmost position to protect several site names in the same domain. For example, *.example.com protects corp.example.com, and images.example.com. The wild card name will appear in the Subject field and the Subject Alternative Name extension of the ACM certificate.

   Note

   When you request a wild card certificate, the asterisk (*) must be in the leftmost position of the domain name and can protect only one subdomain level. For example, *.example.com can protect login.example.com, and test.example.com, but it cannot protect test.login.example.com. Also note that *.example.com protects only the subdomains of example.com, it does not protect the bare or apex domain (example.com). To protect both, see the next step.

4. To add another name, choose Add another name to this certificate and type the name in the text box. This is useful for protecting both a bare or apex domain (such as example.com) and its subdomains such as *.example.com).

   When you finish adding names, choose Next.

5. On the Select validation method page, choose either DNS validation or Email validation, depending on your needs.

   Note

   If you are able to edit your DNS configuration, we recommend that you use DNS domain validation rather than email validation. DNS validation has multiple benefits over email validation. See Option 1: DNS validation.

   Before ACM issues a certificate, it validates that you own or control the domain names in your certificate request. You can use either email validation or DNS validation. If you choose email validation, ACM sends validation email to three contact addresses registered in the WHOIS database and to five common system administration addresses for each domain name. You or an authorized representative must reply to one of these email messages. For more information, see Option 2: Email validation. If you use DNS validation, you simply add a CNAME record provided by ACM to your DNS configuration. For more information about DNS validation, see Option 1: DNS validation.

   After choosing a validation method, choose Next.

6. On the Add tags page, you can optionally tag your certificate. Tags are key/value pairs that serve as metadata for identifying and organizing AWS resources. For a list of ACM tag parameters and for instructions on how to add tags to certificates after creation, see Tagging AWS Certificate Manager certificates.

   When you finish adding tags, choose Review.

7. If the Review page contains correct information about your request, choose Confirm and request. A confirmation page shows that your request is being processed and that certificate domains are being validated. Certificates awaiting validation are in the Pending validation state.

   Important

   Unless you choose to opt out, your certificate will be automatically recorded in at least two public certificate transparency databases. You cannot currently use the console to opt out. You must use the AWS CLI or the API. For more information, see Opting out of certificate transparency logging. For general information about transparency logs, see Certificate Transparency Logging.

   Choose Continue to return to the ACM console.