Nutanix Certified Associate Practice Exam

What encoding format must the imported files for a custom certificate be in when replacing a self-signed certificate on a Nutanix cluster?

1. ASCII

2. UTF-8

3. PEM

4. Base64

The correct answer is: PEM

The correct encoding format for imported files when replacing a self-signed certificate on a Nutanix cluster is PEM (Privacy-Enhanced Mail). PEM is a widely used format for encoding cryptographic data, particularly when it involves certificates and keys. PEM files typically contain Base64-encoded data wrapped with specific header and footer lines that indicate the type of the encoded content—such as "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----" and "-----END CERTIFICATE-----." This format allows for easy storage and transmission of certificate data, ensuring that the information remains intact and can be easily processed by the Nutanix cluster. Using PEM as the format is critical as it not only supports the necessary structure for the certificates but also ensures compatibility with the underlying services that require the certificates for secure communication. The proper encoding ensures that the Nutanix system can successfully parse and utilize the certificates being imported, thereby supporting secure operations within the cluster. While ASCII, UTF-8, and Base64 are all encoding options, they do not provide the full structure and context needed for certificate handling as PEM does. ASCII and UTF-8 are character encodings, while Base64 is merely an encoding scheme that converts binary data into a text format, but without the headers and foot