Project Dogtag is an opensource version of Red Hat Certificate Server. It was released to public in late March, 2008, installs on Fedora8

From installation perspective a very straightforward install.

1. Installed Fedora8, default options
2. Followed instructions on http://pki.fedoraproject.org/wiki/PKI_Main_Page
3. I did not choose to compile, rather opted for compiled version
4. Installed the pre-requisites as the instructions on wiki said
5. Then proceeded with the instructions
6. Up and running in about 2 hours.

I would say try it out, and start using it.

Public-Key infrastructure (PKI) is the integration of software, hardware, encryption technologies and services for managing public keys. PKI provides for the four basic requirements of a secure system:

• Confidentiality to keep information private.
• Integrity to prove that information has not been changed.
• Authentication to prove the identity of the sender.
• Non-repudiation, which ensures that the information originator cannot deny ownership.

How these requirements are acheived?

Various PKI Implementations currently available

• •Red Hat Certificate Management System
• Project Dogtag (OpenSource version of Redhat, based on Fedora)