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Understanding Public Key Infrastructure
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) systems allow the two parties in a data transaction to be authenticated to each other, and to use encryption keys and other information in identity certificates to encrypt and decrypt messages traveling between them.
PKI enables multiple communicating parties to establish confidentiality, message integrity and message source authentication without having to exchange any secret information in advance.
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology relies on a PKI system for secure data transmission, and user authentication. It creates an initial secure communication channel to negotiate a faster, secret key transmission. Mac OS X Server uses SSL to provide data encrypted data transmission for mail, web, and directory services.
The following sections contain more background information about key aspects of PKI: