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Issuing a certificate

Issuance is asynchronous. POST /v1/certificates answers 202 with the certificate in pending_dns and the complete challenges list. Use the returned CNAME names and targets immediately; you do not need to poll for them. If challenge planning fails, creation fails without saving a certificate or a partial challenge list.
1

Create the certificate

Go to Certificates and choose Create Certificate. Give it a Name, add each Domain, and leave the source on Auto-issue via DNS challenge.The certificate lands in the list straight away, and the detail page shows Configure DNS to complete certificate issuance with the records to publish.
name is unique per account and lands in the CRN, so it has to be URL-safe — letters, digits, dot, dash, underscore.The create response includes one challenge per normalized domain, each carrying cname_record_name, expected_cname and our_dns. The console detail page shows Auto-creating when we host the zone and Awaiting CNAME when you need to publish the record. Use Copy CNAME name and Copy expected value to copy its two halves.
2

Publish the CNAME

Each challenge needs _acme-challenge.<domain> pointing at that challenge’s expected_cname. Whether you do anything here depends on who hosts the zone — see below.
3

Wait for active

Poll GET /v1/certificates/{certificate_id} or refresh the console detail page to follow issuance progress.Each challenge flips verified: true as its CNAME resolves. Once every challenge is verified and signing completes, the certificate becomes active and certificate_pem, fingerprint, issued_at and expires_at are populated.

Who publishes the CNAME

The challenge comes back with our_dns: true. Basaltic creates the CNAME automatically during issuance, after the create response. You do not need to publish it yourself; wait until verified turns true.

Wildcards

A wildcard SAN validates at its parent name, not at the literal SAN — this is RFC 8555 §8.4. So a certificate for *.example.com needs:
The challenge’s cname_record_name already accounts for this; publish what it says and the wildcard case takes care of itself.
A wildcard order can only be signed by a wildcard-capable authority. If none is available the certificate fails rather than falling back to one that cannot issue it.

Key algorithms

key_algorithm defaults to ecdsa-p256 and cannot be changed after creation — issue a new certificate to move to a different algorithm.

ECDSA

ecdsa-p256 (default), ecdsa-p384. Smaller keys, faster handshakes. Prefer these unless a client requires RSA.

RSA

rsa-2048, rsa-4096. For older clients and appliances that will not negotiate an ECDSA chain.