The HTML upload applet that is part of LISTSERV Maestro is digitally signed with a digital certificate, which is a mechanism to authenticate the trustworthiness of the applet before allowing it to access the user's local disk (for loading the HTML file and inline binaries). The digital certificate that is used for this process is issued by a trustworthy signing authority and has a limited validity duration, i.e. it expires at a given date. (To date, L-Soft uses certificates issued by Thawte Consulting or VeriSign.)
Note: An upload applet with an expired certificate is just as secure as an upload applet with a valid certificate; therefore, if you are not bothered by the warning messages, you may continue to use the expired applet without any worries. However, the warning message about the expired certificate may irritate users and leave them uncertain about if it is safe to execute the applet. If you want to avoid this, then you need to replace the expired applet with a freshly signed version as described below.
The upload applet comes in two versions: One version is for the Sun Java-Plugin, which is used by many modern browsers (for example by Firefox, Safari and Mozilla, and often also by Internet Explorer); the other version is for the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine, which is used mostly by older Internet Explorer installations. The version of the applet that is being used depends entirely on the browser used to access LISTSERV Maestro, (i.e. at one and the same LISTSERV Maestro installation, both applet versions may be used). The two versions of the applet are identical in terms of their function and how they work, but the certificate messages they present to the user are different, as described in the following sections.
If you are seeing the former of the two messages, then the certificate of the applet in your LISTSERV Maestro has expired. If you want to avoid the warning message so that the second message is being displayed instead, you need to update the applet in your LISTSERV Maestro server with a version that has been signed with a fresh certificate that is still valid.
Please contact L-Soft support with information about the LISTSERV Maestro version you are using and you will be supplied with a freshly signed version of the applet (it might be necessary that you update to the newest LISTSERV Maestro version before you can apply the new applet). The applet comes in form of a file called "upload.jar", which you need to copy to the following location (overwriting the file of the same name which is already present):
[Maestro_install_folder]/webapps/lui/JSP
It is not necessary to restart LISTSERV Maestro after this replacement, but if you already had a browser open and were accessing LISTSERV Maestro, you may need to close and restart the browser to make it aware of the new applet.
Note: The Sun Java-Plugin sometimes caches the applet on the local computer. This may have the effect that on a given computer the old expired version of the applet is being used even after you have replaced the "upload.jar" file. If this is the case, then close your browser and clear the applet cache of the Sun Java-Plugin. For example, on Windows and with the "Java 5" Java-Plugin: Select the Windows
Start Menu, click on
Control Panel, click on the
Java icon, click on the
General tab, click the
[Delete Files] button, check the
Downloaded Applets option, and then click
[OK].
The MS Java VM does not display an explicit warning message for an expired certificate; therefore, if this applet version is being used, users may not even notice that a certificate has expired. However, if the certificate details are examined closely, the fact that the applet is expired may still be noted.
This message looks exactly the same both for applets with a valid or an expired certificate. If the user now clicks
[Yes], then the applet will start normally without the user even noticing that the certificate may have expired.
If you click on L-Soft Germany GmbH, then the following window is displayed where the certificate validity can be seen (i.e. here a user may notice that the certificate is expired):
If you want to prevent a user from discovering that the applet has already expired, then you need to update the applet in your LISTSERV Maestro server with a version that has been signed with a fresh certificate that is still valid.
Please contact L-Soft support with information about the LISTSERV Maestro version you are using to receive a freshly signed version of the applet (you may need to update to the newest LISTSERV Maestro version before you can apply the new applet). The applet comes in form of a file called "upload.cab", which you need to copy to the following location (overwriting the file of the same name which is already present):
[Maestro_install_folder]/webapps/lui/JSP
It is not necessary to restart LISTSERV Maestro after this replacement, but if you already had Internet Explorer open and were accessing LISTSERV Maestro, then you may need to close and restart Internet Explorer to make it aware of the new applet.
