==================================
Certificate Authority introduction
==================================

Hyperledger fabric is a permissioned blockchain, thus, each network participant must have a digital identity (certificate) to convience other participants
that it has rights to perform actions in the network or even be part of the network and Fabric CA is used to manage these identities.

Fabric CA offers functionalities like registering/renewing/deleting identities, issuing crypto materials for the registered identity, revoking identities, generating CRLs (Certificate Revocation List) and more.

There are 3 types of identities, **peer**, **client**, **orderer** and **admin**. Each of these identities has its own role in the network. Let's go through them:

**peer**
  A **peer** identity is used by peer nodes that form consensus in the network

**client**
  A **client** identity is used by external applications that are willing to be integrated to the network.

**orderer**
  An **order** identity is used by **orderer** nodes that ensure transaction ordering

**admin**
  An **admin** identity used by organization admins that perform administrative tasks in the network.