# Automatically Obtain Production mTLS Certificates on Mastercard Developers
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/blog/mtls-cert-automation/index.md

Authors: Teyshaan Hall. TL;DR Production mTLS certificate generation is now available directly on Mastercard Developers You can generate a private key and certificate automatically, or upload your own CSR Certificates can be rotated, downloaded, and revoked from your project dashboard What's New In 2024, we brought self-service mTLS certificate generation to Sandbox. That same capability is now available for Production. You can go from access request to live credentials in seconds, without leaving Mastercard Developers. Why It Matters Several Mastercard APIs use Mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication to establish trusted, encrypted communication between client applications and Mastercard services. By requiring both the client and server to authenticate using digital certificates, mTLS ensures that only authorized applications can securely access protected APIs. Integrating with APIs that require mTLS traditionally involves multiple steps to obtain a certificate. Developers often generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR), submit it to a Certificate Authority (CA), wait for it to be signed, and then configure the returned certificate within their integration. This process can introduce delays during Sandbox and Production onboarding and often takes anywhere from days to weeks. On Mastercard Developers, these certificates can be issued in seconds, helping customers reduce manual steps and accelerate time to go-live, while still maintaining the security standards required for API access. We recommend generating your certificate directly on Mastercard Developers. It's faster, requires fewer steps, and keeps the whole process in one place. That said, uploading certificates from supported CAs remains an option if your organization requires it. How It Works Add a Production client certificate During the request Production access flow for mTLS APIs, you will first be prompted to select a method for obtaining your certificate, the "project credential." On this screen, choose how you want to obtain your certificate: Generate a new private key -- Mastercard Developers automatically generates a private key and CSR for you Provide your own CSR -- Upload or Paste your own CSR Download your certificate During the final step of the Production access request flow, download the issued certificate (and private key, if Mastercard Developers generated it for you). Configure your application When your integration is ready, configure your application to present the certificate when making API calls. Once configured, your application will authenticate using mTLS to establish a secure connection to Mastercard services. Certificate Lifecycle Management Developers can manage Production certificates directly from their project dashboard: Rotate certificates -- You can request a new certificate at any time. When a certificate is approaching expiration, use the add certificate flow to obtain a new one and update your integration before removing the expiring certificate. Download certificates -- Issued certificates can be downloaded at any time. However, if you chose the "Generate a new private key" option, the private key Mastercard Developers generates is available only at the time of creation. Revoke certificates -- If a certificate is no longer in use, you can revoke it directly from your project dashboard. Learn More For additional guidance on mTLS authentication and configuration, refer to the following resources: Using mTLS to Access Mastercard APIs Secure Your API Integration with mTLS Authentication on Mastercard Developers