By default, Harbor uses its own private key and certificate to authenticate with Docker clients. This topic describes how to optionally customize your configuration to use your own key and certificate.
Harbor requires the Docker client to access the Harbor registry with a token. The procedure to generate a token is like [Docker Registry v2 authentication](https://github.com/docker/distribution/blob/master/docs/spec/auth/token.md). Firstly, you make a request to the token service for a token. The token is signed by the private key. After that, you make a new request with the token to the Harbor registry, Harbor registry verifies the token with the public key in the root cert bundle. Then Harbor registry authorizes the Docker client to push and pull images.
- If you do not already have a certificate, follow the instructions in [Generate a Root Certificate](#gen-cert) to generate a root certificate by using openSSL.
- If you already have a certificate, go to [Provide the Certificate to Harbor](#provide-cert).
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN. There are quite a few fields but you can leave some of them blank. For some fields there is a default value. If you enter `.`, the field is left blank.
See [Run the Installer Script](run_installer_script.md) or [Reconfigure Harbor and Manage the Harbor Lifecycle](reconfigure_manage_lifecycle.md) to install or reconfigure Harbor. After you run `./install` or `./prepare`, Harbor generates several configuration files. You need to replace the original private key and certificate with your own key and certificate.