OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
openssl - OpenSSL command line tool
openssl command [ command_opts ] [ command_args ]
openssl [ list-standard-commands | list-message-digest-
commands | list-cipher-commands ]
openssl no-XXX [ arbitrary options ]
OpenSSL is a cryptography toolkit implementing the Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS
v1) network protocols and related cryptography standards
required by them.
The openssl program is a command line tool for using the
various cryptography functions of OpenSSL's crypto library
from the shell. It can be used for
o Creation of RSA, DH and DSA key parameters
o Creation of X.509 certificates, CSRs and CRLs
o Calculation of Message Digests
o Encryption and Decryption with Ciphers
o SSL/TLS Client and Server Tests
o Handling of S/MIME signed or encrypted mail
The openssl program provides a rich variety of commands
(command in the SYNOPSIS above), each of which often has a
wealth of options and arguments (command_opts and
command_args in the SYNOPSIS).
The pseudo-commands list-standard-commands, list-message-
digest-commands, and list-cipher-commands output a list (one
entry per line) of the names of all standard commands, mes-
sage digest commands, or cipher commands, respectively, that
are available in the present openssl utility.
The pseudo-command no-XXX tests whether a command of the
specified name is available. If no command named XXX
exists, it returns 0 (success) and prints no-XXX; otherwise
it returns 1 and prints XXX. In both cases, the output goes
to stdout and nothing is printed to stderr. Additional com-
mand line arguments are always ignored. Since for each
cipher there is a command of the same name, this provides an
easy way for shell scripts to test for the availability of
ciphers in the openssl program. (no-XXX is not able to
detect pseudo-commands such as quit, list-...-commands, or
no-XXX itself.)
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STANDARD COMMANDS
asn1octetstream
Provides encryption in PEM format, as used by
vnconfig(8).
asn1parse Parse an ASN.1 sequence.
ca Certificate Authority (CA) Management.
ciphers Cipher Suite Description Determination.
crl Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Management.
crl2pkcs7 CRL to PKCS#7 Conversion.
dgst Message Digest Calculation.
dh Diffie-Hellman Parameter Management. Obsoleted by
dhparam.
dsa DSA Data Management.
dsaparam DSA Parameter Generation.
enc Encoding with Ciphers.
errstr Error Number to Error String Conversion.
dhparam Generation and Management of Diffie-Hellman Param-
eters.
gendh Generation of Diffie-Hellman Parameters. Obsoleted
by dhparam.
gendsa Generation of DSA Parameters.
genrsa Generation of RSA Parameters.
ocsp Online Certificate Status Protocol utility.
passwd Generation of hashed passwords.
pkcs12 PKCS#12 Data Management.
pkcs7 PKCS#7 Data Management.
rand Generate pseudo-random bytes.
req X.509 Certificate Signing Request (CSR) Manage-
ment.
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rsa RSA Data Management.
rsautl RSA utility for signing, verification, encryption,
and decryption.
s_client This implements a generic SSL/TLS client which can
establish a transparent connection to a remote
server speaking SSL/TLS. It's intended for testing
purposes only and provides only rudimentary inter-
face functionality but internally uses mostly all
functionality of the OpenSSL ssl library.
s_server This implements a generic SSL/TLS server which
accepts connections from remote clients speaking
SSL/TLS. It's intended for testing purposes only
and provides only rudimentary interface func-
tionality but internally uses mostly all func-
tionality of the OpenSSL ssl library. It provides
both an own command line oriented protocol for
testing SSL functions and a simple HTTP response
facility to emulate an SSL/TLS-aware webserver.
s_time SSL Connection Timer.
sess_id SSL Session Data Management.
smime S/MIME mail processing.
speed Algorithm Speed Measurement.
verify X.509 Certificate Verification.
version OpenSSL Version Information.
x509 X.509 Certificate Data Management.
MESSAGE DIGEST COMMANDS
md2 MD2 Digest
md5 MD5 Digest
rmd160 RMD-160 Digest
sha SHA Digest
sha1 SHA-1 Digest
sha224 SHA-224 Digest
sha256 SHA-256 Digest
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
sha384 SHA-384 Digest
sha512 SHA-512 Digest
ENCODING AND CIPHER COMMANDS
base64 Base64 Encoding
bf bf-cbc bf-cfb bf-ecb bf-ofb
Blowfish Cipher
cast cast-cbc
CAST Cipher
cast5-cbc cast5-cfb cast5-ecb cast5-ofb
CAST5 Cipher
des des-cbc des-cfb des-ecb des-ede des-ede-cbc des-ede-
cfb des- ede-ofb des-ofb
DES Cipher
des3 desx des-ede3 des-ede3-cbc des-ede3-cfb des-ede3-ofb
Triple-DES Cipher
rc2 rc2-cbc rc2-cfb rc2-ecb rc2-ofb
RC2 Cipher
rc4 RC4 Cipher
Several commands accept password arguments, typically using
-passin and -passout for input and output passwords respec-
tively. These allow the password to be obtained from a
variety of sources. Both of these options take a single
argument whose format is described below. If no password
argument is given and a password is required then the user
is prompted to enter one: this will typically be read from
the current terminal with echoing turned off.
pass:password
the actual password is password. Since the pass-
word is visible to utilities (like 'ps' under
Unix) this form should only be used where security
is not important.
env:var obtain the password from the environment variable
var. Since the environment of other processes is
visible on certain platforms (e.g. ps under cer-
tain Unix OSes) this option should be used with
caution.
file:pathname
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the first line of pathname is the password. If the
same pathname argument is supplied to -passin and
-passout arguments then the first line will be
used for the input password and the next line for
the output password. pathname need not refer to a
regular file: it could for example refer to a dev-
ice or named pipe.
fd:number read the password from the file descriptor number.
This can be used to send the data via a pipe for
example.
stdin read the password from standard input.
asn1parse(1), ca(1), config(5), crl(1), crl2pkcs7(1),
dgst(1), dhparam(1), dsa(1), dsaparam(1), enc(1), gendsa(1),
genrsa(1), nseq(1), openssl(1), passwd(1), pkcs12(1),
pkcs7(1), pkcs8(1), rand(1), req(1), rsa(1), rsautl(1),
s_client(1), s_server(1), s_time(1), smime(1), spkac(1),
verify(1), version(1), x509(1), crypto(3), ssl(3)
The openssl(1) document appeared in OpenSSL 0.9.2. The
list-XXX-commands pseudo-commands were added in OpenSSL
0.9.3; the no-XXX pseudo-commands were added in OpenSSL
0.9.5a. For notes on the availability of other commands, see
their individual manual pages.
asn1octetstream - ASN.1 octet stream PEM encryption tool
openssl asn1octetstream [-in filename] [-passin arg] [-out
filename] [-passout arg] [-e] [-d] [-<algo>]
The asn1octetstream command encapsulates arbitrary binary
data in ASN.1 octet strings and stores them, optionally
(usually) encrypted, in PEM format. It also handles conver-
sion of the PEM encoding, such as changing the passphrase
and crypto type.
-<algo>
If writing PEM output, write it in a symmetrically
encrypted manner, with algo as cryptographic algorithm.
This option is highly recommended. See the list-cipher-
commands command for a list of valid ciphers.
-d Instead of writing a PEM encoded ASN.1 octet string to
the output stream, write the binary data content of it.
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-e Instead of expecting a PEM encoded ASN.1 octet string on
the input stream, read arbitrary binary data (up to 2
GiB - 1 Byte) and encapsulate it into an ASN.1 octet
stream for further processing.
-in filename
the input file, default is standard input
-out filename
output file to place the DER encoded data into. If this
option is not present then no data will be output. This
is most useful when combined with the -strparse option.
The PEM encapsulation format uses the header and footer
lines:
-----BEGIN ASN1 OCTET STRING-----
-----END ASN1 OCTET STRING-----
This format is a MirBSD extension. The MirOS Project hopes
this will some day be integrated into stock OpenSSL.
asn1parse - ASN.1 parsing tool
openssl asn1parse [-inform PEM|DER] [-in filename] [-out
filename] [-noout] [-offset number] [-length number] [-i]
[-oid filename] [-strparse offset]
The asn1parse command is a diagnostic utility that can parse
ASN.1 structures. It can also be used to extract data from
ASN.1 formatted data.
-inform DER|PEM
the input format. DER is binary format and PEM (the
default) is base64 encoded.
-in filename
the input file, default is standard input
-out filename
output file to place the DER encoded data into. If this
option is not present then no data will be output. This
is most useful when combined with the -strparse option.
-noout
don't output the parsed version of the input file.
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-offset number
starting offset to begin parsing, default is start of
file.
-length number
number of bytes to parse, default is until end of file.
-i indents the output according to the "depth" of the
structures.
-oid filename
a file containing additional OBJECT IDENTIFIERs (OIDs).
The format of this file is described in the NOTES sec-
tion below.
-strparse offset
parse the contents octets of the ASN.1 object starting
at offset. This option can be used multiple times to
"drill down" into a nested structure.
OUTPUT
The output will typically contain lines like this:
0:d=0 hl=4 l= 681 cons: SEQUENCE
.....
229:d=3 hl=3 l= 141 prim: BIT STRING
373:d=2 hl=3 l= 162 cons: cont [ 3 ]
376:d=3 hl=3 l= 159 cons: SEQUENCE
379:d=4 hl=2 l= 29 cons: SEQUENCE
381:d=5 hl=2 l= 3 prim: OBJECT :X509v3 Subject Key Identifier
386:d=5 hl=2 l= 22 prim: OCTET STRING
410:d=4 hl=2 l= 112 cons: SEQUENCE
412:d=5 hl=2 l= 3 prim: OBJECT :X509v3 Authority Key Identifier
417:d=5 hl=2 l= 105 prim: OCTET STRING
524:d=4 hl=2 l= 12 cons: SEQUENCE
.....
This example is part of a self signed certificate. Each line
starts with the offset in decimal. d=XX specifies the
current depth. The depth is increased within the scope of
any SET or SEQUENCE. hl=XX gives the header length (tag and
length octets) of the current type. l=XX gives the length of
the contents octets.
The -i option can be used to make the output more readable.
Some knowledge of the ASN.1 structure is needed to interpret
the output.
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In this example the BIT STRING at offset 229 is the certifi-
cate public key. The contents octets of this will contain
the public key information. This can be examined using the
option -strparse 229 to yield:
0:d=0 hl=3 l= 137 cons: SEQUENCE
3:d=1 hl=3 l= 129 prim: INTEGER :E5D21E1F5C8D208EA7A2166C7FAF9F6BDF2059669C60876DDB70840F1A5AAFA59699FE471F379F1DD6A487E7D5409AB6A88D4A9746E24B91D8CF55DB3521015460C8EDE44EE8A4189F7A7BE77D6CD3A9AF2696F486855CF58BF0EDF2B4068058C7A947F52548DDF7E15E96B385F86422BEA9064A3EE9E1158A56E4A6F47E5897
135:d=1 hl=2 l= 3 prim: INTEGER :010001
If an OID is not part of OpenSSL's internal table it will be
represented in numerical form (for example 1.2.3.4). The
file passed to the -oid option allows additional OIDs to be
included. Each line consists of three columns, the first
column is the OID in numerical format and should be followed
by white space. The second column is the "short name" which
is a single word followed by white space. The final column
is the rest of the line and is the "long name". asn1parse
displays the long name. Example:
"1.2.3.4 shortName A long name"
There should be options to change the format of output
lines. The output of some ASN.1 types is not well handled
(if at all).
ca - sample minimal CA application
openssl ca [-verbose] [-config filename] [-name section]
[-gencrl] [-revoke file] [-crl_reason reason] [-crl_hold
instruction] [-crl_compromise time] [-crl_CA_compromise
time] [-subj arg] [-crldays days] [-crlhours hours]
[-crlexts section] [-startdate date] [-enddate date] [-days
arg] [-md arg] [-policy arg] [-keyfile arg] [-key arg]
[-passin arg] [-cert file] [-in file] [-out file] [-notext]
[-outdir dir] [-infiles] [-spkac file] [-ss_cert file]
[-preserveDN] [-noemailDN] [-batch] [-msie_hack] [-exten-
sions section] [-extfile section] [-engine id]
The ca command is a minimal CA application. It can be used
to sign certificate requests in a variety of forms and gen-
erate CRLs it also maintains a text database of issued cer-
tificates and their status.
The options descriptions will be divided into each purpose.
-config filename
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specifies the configuration file to use.
-name section
specifies the configuration file section to use (over-
rides default_ca in the ca section).
-in filename
an input filename containing a single certificate
request to be signed by the CA.
-ss_cert filename
a single self signed certificate to be signed by the CA.
-spkac filename
a file containing a single Netscape signed public key
and challenge and additional field values to be signed
by the CA. See the SPKAC FORMAT section for information
on the required format.
-infiles
if present this should be the last option, all subse-
quent arguments are assumed to the the names of files
containing certificate requests.
-out filename
the output file to output certificates to. The default
is standard output. The certificate details will also be
printed out to this file.
-outdir directory
the directory to output certificates to. The certificate
will be written to a filename consisting of the serial
number in hex with ".pem" appended.
-cert
the CA certificate file.
-keyfile filename
the private key to sign requests with.
-key password
the password used to encrypt the private key. Since on
some systems the command line arguments are visible
(e.g. Unix with the 'ps' utility) this option should be
used with caution.
-passin arg
the key password source. For more information about the
format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in
openssl(1).
-verbose
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this prints extra details about the operations being
performed.
-notext
don't output the text form of a certificate to the out-
put file.
-startdate date
this allows the start date to be explicitly set. The
format of the date is YYMMDDHHMMSSZ (the same as an ASN1
UTCTime structure).
-enddate date
this allows the expiry date to be explicitly set. The
format of the date is YYMMDDHHMMSSZ (the same as an ASN1
UTCTime structure).
-days arg
the number of days to certify the certificate for.
-md alg
the message digest to use. Possible values include md5
and sha1. This option also applies to CRLs.
-policy arg
this option defines the CA "policy" to use. This is a
section in the configuration file which decides which
fields should be mandatory or match the CA certificate.
Check out the POLICY FORMAT section for more informa-
tion.
-msie_hack
this is a legacy option to make ca work with very old
versions of the IE certificate enrollment control "cer-
tenr3". It used UniversalStrings for almost everything.
Since the old control has various security bugs its use
is strongly discouraged. The newer control "Xenroll"
does not need this option.
-preserveDN
Normally the DN order of a certificate is the same as
the order of the fields in the relevant policy section.
When this option is set the order is the same as the
request. This is largely for compatibility with the
older IE enrollment control which would only accept cer-
tificates if their DNs match the order of the request.
This is not needed for Xenroll.
-noemailDN
The DN of a certificate can contain the EMAIL field if
present in the request DN, however it is good policy
just having the e-mail set into the altName extension of
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the certificate. When this option is set the EMAIL field
is removed from the certificate' subject and set only in
the, eventually present, extensions. The email_in_dn
keyword can be used in the configuration file to enable
this behaviour.
-batch
this sets the batch mode. In this mode no questions will
be asked and all certificates will be certified automat-
ically.
-extensions section
the section of the configuration file containing certi-
ficate extensions to be added when a certificate is
issued (defaults to x509_extensions unless the -extfile
option is used). If no extension section is present
then, a V1 certificate is created. If the extension sec-
tion is present (even if it is empty), then a V3 certi-
ficate is created.
-extfile file
an additional configuration file to read certificate
extensions from (using the default section unless the
-extensions option is also used).
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
-gencrl
this option generates a CRL based on information in the
index file.
-crldays num
the number of days before the next CRL is due. That is
the days from now to place in the CRL nextUpdate field.
-crlhours num
the number of hours before the next CRL is due.
-revoke filename
a filename containing a certificate to revoke.
-crl_reason reason
revocation reason, where reason is one of: unspecified,
keyCompromise, CACompromise, affiliationChanged, super-
seded, cessationOfOperation, certificateHold or remo-
veFromCRL. The matching of reason is case insensitive.
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Setting any revocation reason will make the CRL v2.
In practive removeFromCRL is not particularly useful
because it is only used in delta CRLs which are not
currently implemented.
-crl_hold instruction
This sets the CRL revocation reason code to certificate-
Hold and the hold instruction to instruction which must
be an OID. Although any OID can be used only holdIn-
structionNone (the use of which is discouraged by
RFC2459) holdInstructionCallIssuer or holdInstructionRe-
ject will normally be used.
-crl_compromise time
This sets the revocation reason to keyCompromise and the
compromise time to time. time should be in Generalized-
Time format that is YYYYMMDDHHMMSSZ.
-crl_CA_compromise time
This is the same as crl_compromise except the revocation
reason is set to CACompromise.
-subj arg
supersedes subject name given in the request. The arg
must be formatted as
/type0=value0/type1=value1/type2=..., characters may be
escaped by \ (backslash), no spaces are skipped.
-crlexts section
the section of the configuration file containing CRL
extensions to include. If no CRL extension section is
present then a V1 CRL is created, if the CRL extension
section is present (even if it is empty) then a V2 CRL
is created. The CRL extensions specified are CRL exten-
sions and not CRL entry extensions. It should be noted
that some software (for example Netscape) can't handle
V2 CRLs.
The section of the configuration file containing options for
ca is found as follows: If the -name command line option is
used, then it names the section to be used. Otherwise the
section to be used must be named in the default_ca option of
the ca section of the configuration file (or in the default
section of the configuration file). Besides default_ca, the
following options are read directly from the ca section:
RANDFILE
preserve
msie_hack With the exception of RANDFILE, this is probably
a bug and may change in future releases.
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Many of the configuration file options are identical to com-
mand line options. Where the option is present in the confi-
guration file and the command line the command line value is
used. Where an option is described as mandatory then it must
be present in the configuration file or the command line
equivalent (if any) used.
oid_file
This specifies a file containing additional OBJECT IDEN-
TIFIERS. Each line of the file should consist of the
numerical form of the object identifier followed by
white space then the short name followed by white space
and finally the long name.
oid_section
This specifies a section in the configuration file con-
taining extra object identifiers. Each line should con-
sist of the short name of the object identifier followed
by = and the numerical form. The short and long names
are the same when this option is used.
new_certs_dir
the same as the -outdir command line option. It speci-
fies the directory where new certificates will be
placed. Mandatory.
certificate
the same as -cert. It gives the file containing the CA
certificate. Mandatory.
private_key
same as the -keyfile option. The file containing the CA
private key. Mandatory.
RANDFILE
a file used to read and write random number seed infor-
mation, or an EGD socket (see RAND_egd(3)).
default_days
the same as the -days option. The number of days to cer-
tify a certificate for.
default_startdate
the same as the -startdate option. The start date to
certify a certificate for. If not set the current time
is used.
default_enddate
the same as the -enddate option. Either this option or
default_days (or the command line equivalents) must be
present.
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default_crl_hours default_crl_days
the same as the -crlhours and the -crldays options.
These will only be used if neither command line option
is present. At least one of these must be present to
generate a CRL.
default_md
the same as the -md option. The message digest to use.
Mandatory.
database
the text database file to use. Mandatory. This file must
be present though initially it will be empty.
serial
a text file containing the next serial number to use in
hex. Mandatory. This file must be present and contain a
valid serial number.
x509_extensions
the same as -extensions.
crl_extensions
the same as -crlexts.
preserve
the same as -preserveDN
email_in_dn
the same as -noemailDN. If you want the EMAIL field to
be removed from the DN of the certificate simply set
this to 'no'. If not present the default is to allow for
the EMAIL filed in the certificate's DN.
msie_hack
the same as -msie_hack
policy
the same as -policy. Mandatory. See the POLICY FORMAT
section for more information.
name_opt, cert_opt
these options allow the format used to display the cer-
tificate details when asking the user to confirm sign-
ing. All the options supported by the x509 utilities
-nameopt and -certopt switches can be used here, except
the no_signame and no_sigdump are permanently set and
cannot be disabled (this is because the certificate sig-
nature cannot be displayed because the certificate has
not been signed at this point).
For convenience the values ca_default are accepted by
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both to produce a reasonable output.
If neither option is present the format used in earlier
versions of OpenSSL is used. Use of the old format is
strongly discouraged because it only displays fields
mentioned in the policy section, mishandles multicharac-
ter string types and does not display extensions.
copy_extensions
determines how extensions in certificate requests should
be handled. If set to none or this option is not present
then extensions are ignored and not copied to the certi-
ficate. If set to copy then any extensions present in
the request that are not already present are copied to
the certificate. If set to copyall then all extensions
in the request are copied to the certificate: if the
extension is already present in the certificate it is
deleted first. See the WARNINGS section before using
this option.
The main use of this option is to allow a certificate
request to supply values for certain extensions such as
subjectAltName.
The policy section consists of a set of variables
corresponding to certificate DN fields. If the value is
"match" then the field value must match the same field in
the CA certificate. If the value is "supplied" then it must
be present. If the value is "optional" then it may be
present. Any fields not mentioned in the policy section are
silently deleted, unless the -preserveDN option is set but
this can be regarded more of a quirk than intended
behaviour.
The input to the -spkac command line option is a Netscape
signed public key and challenge. This will usually come from
the KEYGEN tag in an HTML form to create a new private key.
It is however possible to create SPKACs using the spkac
utility.
The file should contain the variable SPKAC set to the value
of the SPKAC and also the required DN components as name
value pairs. If you need to include the same component twice
then it can be preceded by a number and a '.'.
Note: these examples assume that the ca directory structure
is already set up and the relevant files already exist. This
usually involves creating a CA certificate and private key
with req, a serial number file and an empty index file and
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placing them in the relevant directories.
To use the sample configuration file below the directories
demoCA, demoCA/private and demoCA/newcerts would be created.
The CA certificate would be copied to demoCA/cacert.pem and
its private key to demoCA/private/cakey.pem. A file
demoCA/serial would be created containing for example "01"
and the empty index file demoCA/index.txt.
Sign a certificate request:
openssl ca -in req.pem -out newcert.pem
Sign a certificate request, using CA extensions:
openssl ca -in req.pem -extensions v3_ca -out newcert.pem
Generate a CRL
openssl ca -gencrl -out crl.pem
Sign several requests:
openssl ca -infiles req1.pem req2.pem req3.pem
Certify a Netscape SPKAC:
openssl ca -spkac spkac.txt
A sample SPKAC file (the SPKAC line has been truncated for
clarity):
SPKAC=MIG0MGAwXDANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAANLADBIAkEAn7PDhCeV/xIxUg8V70YRxK2A5
CN=Steve Test
emailAddress=steve@openssl.org
0.OU=OpenSSL Group
1.OU=Another Group
A sample configuration file with the relevant sections for
ca:
[ ca ]
default_ca = CA_default # The default ca section
[ CA_default ]
dir = ./demoCA # top dir
database = $dir/index.txt # index file.
new_certs_dir = $dir/newcerts # new certs dir
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certificate = $dir/cacert.pem # The CA cert
serial = $dir/serial # serial no file
private_key = $dir/private/cakey.pem# CA private key
RANDFILE = $dir/private/.rand # random number file
default_days = 365 # how long to certify for
default_crl_days= 30 # how long before next CRL
default_md = md5 # md to use
policy = policy_any # default policy
email_in_dn = no # Don't add the email into cert DN
name_opt = ca_default # Subject name display option
cert_opt = ca_default # Certificate display option
copy_extensions = none # Don't copy extensions from request
[ policy_any ]
countryName = supplied
stateOrProvinceName = optional
organizationName = optional
organizationalUnitName = optional
commonName = supplied
emailAddress = optional
Note: the location of all files can change either by compile
time options, configuration file entries, environment vari-
ables or command line options. The values below reflect the
default values.
/usr/local/ssl/lib/openssl.cnf - master configuration file
./demoCA - main CA directory
./demoCA/cacert.pem - CA certificate
./demoCA/private/cakey.pem - CA private key
./demoCA/serial - CA serial number file
./demoCA/serial.old - CA serial number backup file
./demoCA/index.txt - CA text database file
./demoCA/index.txt.old - CA text database backup file
./demoCA/certs - certificate output file
./demoCA/.rnd - CA random seed information
OPENSSL_CONF reflects the location of master configuration
file it can be overridden by the -config command line
option.
The text database index file is a critical part of the pro-
cess and if corrupted it can be difficult to fix. It is
theoretically possible to rebuild the index file from all
the issued certificates and a current CRL: however there is
no option to do this.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 17
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
V2 CRL features like delta CRL support and CRL numbers are
not currently supported.
Although several requests can be input and handled at once
it is only possible to include one SPKAC or self signed cer-
tificate.
The use of an in memory text database can cause problems
when large numbers of certificates are present because, as
the name implies the database has to be kept in memory.
It is not possible to certify two certificates with the same
DN: this is a side effect of how the text database is
indexed and it cannot easily be fixed without introducing
other problems. Some S/MIME clients can use two certificates
with the same DN for separate signing and encryption keys.
The ca command really needs rewriting or the required func-
tionality exposed at either a command or interface level so
a more friendly utility (perl script or GUI) can handle
things properly. The scripts CA.sh and CA.pl help a little
but not very much.
Any fields in a request that are not present in a policy are
silently deleted. This does not happen if the -preserveDN
option is used. To enforce the absence of the EMAIL field
within the DN, as suggested by RFCs, regardless the contents
of the request' subject the -noemailDN option can be used.
The behaviour should be more friendly and configurable.
Cancelling some commands by refusing to certify a certifi-
cate can create an empty file.
The ca command is quirky and at times downright unfriendly.
The ca utility was originally meant as an example of how to
do things in a CA. It was not supposed to be used as a full
blown CA itself: nevertheless some people are using it for
this purpose.
The ca command is effectively a single user command: no
locking is done on the various files and attempts to run
more than one ca command on the same database can have
unpredictable results.
The copy_extensions option should be used with caution. If
care is not taken then it can be a security risk. For exam-
ple if a certificate request contains a basicConstraints
extension with CA:TRUE and the copy_extensions value is set
to copyall and the user does not spot this when the
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 18
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
certificate is displayed then this will hand the requestor a
valid CA certificate.
This situation can be avoided by setting copy_extensions to
copy and including basicConstraints with CA:FALSE in the
configuration file. Then if the request contains a basicCon-
straints extension it will be ignored.
It is advisable to also include values for other extensions
such as keyUsage to prevent a request supplying its own
values.
Additional restrictions can be placed on the CA certificate
itself. For example if the CA certificate has:
basicConstraints = CA:TRUE, pathlen:0
then even if a certificate is issued with CA:TRUE it will
not be valid.
req(1), spkac(1), x509(1), CA.pl(1), config(5)
ciphers - SSL cipher display and cipher list tool.
openssl ciphers [-v] [-ssl2] [-ssl3] [-tls1] [cipherlist]
The cipherlist command converts OpenSSL cipher lists into
ordered SSL cipher preference lists. It can be used as a
test tool to determine the appropriate cipherlist.
-v verbose option. List ciphers with a complete description
of protocol version (SSLv2 or SSLv3; the latter includes
TLS), key exchange, authentication, encryption and mac
algorithms used along with any key size restrictions and
whether the algorithm is classed as an "export" cipher.
Note that without the -v option, ciphers may seem to
appear twice in a cipher list; this is when similar
ciphers are available for SSL v2 and for SSL v3/TLS v1.
-ssl3
only include SSL v3 ciphers.
-ssl2
only include SSL v2 ciphers.
-tls1
only include TLS v1 ciphers.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 19
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-h, -?
print a brief usage message.
cipherlist
a cipher list to convert to a cipher preference list. If
it is not included then the default cipher list will be
used. The format is described below.
The cipher list consists of one or more cipher strings
separated by colons. Commas or spaces are also acceptable
separators but colons are normally used.
The actual cipher string can take several different forms.
It can consist of a single cipher suite such as RC4-SHA.
It can represent a list of cipher suites containing a cer-
tain algorithm, or cipher suites of a certain type. For
example SHA1 represents all ciphers suites using the digest
algorithm SHA1 and SSLv3 represents all SSL v3 algorithms.
Lists of cipher suites can be combined in a single cipher
string using the + character. This is used as a logical and
operation. For example SHA1+DES represents all cipher suites
containing the SHA1 and the DES algorithms.
Each cipher string can be optionally preceded by the charac-
ters !, - or +.
If ! is used then the ciphers are permanently deleted from
the list. The ciphers deleted can never reappear in the list
even if they are explicitly stated.
If - is used then the ciphers are deleted from the list, but
some or all of the ciphers can be added again by later
options.
If + is used then the ciphers are moved to the end of the
list. This option doesn't add any new ciphers it just moves
matching existing ones.
If none of these characters is present then the string is
just interpreted as a list of ciphers to be appended to the
current preference list. If the list includes any ciphers
already present they will be ignored: that is they will not
moved to the end of the list.
Additionally the cipher string @STRENGTH can be used at any
point to sort the current cipher list in order of encryption
algorithm key length.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 20
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
The following is a list of all permitted cipher strings and
their meanings.
DEFAULT
the default cipher list. This is determined at compile
time and is currently
ALL:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXP:@STRENGTH:+3DES:+kRSA:+RC4:-LOW.
This must be the first cipher string specified.
COMPLEMENTOFDEFAULT
the ciphers included in ALL, but not enabled by default.
Currently this is ADH. Note that this rule does not
cover eNULL, which is not included by ALL (use COM-
PLEMENTOFALL if necessary).
ALL all ciphers suites except the eNULL ciphers which must
be explicitly enabled.
COMPLEMENTOFALL
the cipher suites not enabled by ALL, currently being
eNULL.
HIGH
"high" encryption cipher suites. This currently means
those with key lengths larger than 128 bits, and some
cipher suites with 128-bit keys.
MEDIUM
"medium" encryption cipher suites, currently some of
those using 128 bit encryption.
LOW "low" encryption cipher suites, currently those using 64
or 56 bit encryption algorithms but excluding export
cipher suites.
EXP, EXPORT
export encryption algorithms. Including 40 and 56 bits
algorithms.
EXPORT40
40 bit export encryption algorithms
EXPORT56
56 bit export encryption algorithms.
eNULL, NULL
the "NULL" ciphers that is those offering no encryption.
Because these offer no encryption at all and are a secu-
rity risk they are disabled unless explicitly included.
aNULL
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 21
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
the cipher suites offering no authentication. This is
currently the anonymous DH algorithms. These cipher
suites are vulnerable to a "man in the middle" attack
and so their use is normally discouraged.
kRSA, RSA
cipher suites using RSA key exchange.
kEDH
cipher suites using ephemeral DH key agreement.
kDHr, kDHd
cipher suites using DH key agreement and DH certificates
signed by CAs with RSA and DSS keys respectively. Not
implemented.
aRSA
cipher suites using RSA authentication, i.e. the certi-
ficates carry RSA keys.
aDSS, DSS
cipher suites using DSS authentication, i.e. the certi-
ficates carry DSS keys.
aDH cipher suites effectively using DH authentication, i.e.
the certificates carry DH keys. Not implemented.
kFZA, aFZA, eFZA, FZA
ciphers suites using FORTEZZA key exchange, authentica-
tion, encryption or all FORTEZZA algorithms. Not imple-
mented.
TLSv1, SSLv3, SSLv2
TLS v1.0, SSL v3.0 or SSL v2.0 cipher suites respec-
tively.
DH cipher suites using DH, including anonymous DH.
ADH anonymous DH cipher suites.
AES cipher suites using AES.
3DES
cipher suites using triple DES.
DES cipher suites using DES (not triple DES).
RC4 cipher suites using RC4.
RC2 cipher suites using RC2.
MD5 cipher suites using MD5.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 22
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
SHA1, SHA
cipher suites using SHA1.
The following lists give the SSL or TLS cipher suites names
from the relevant specification and their OpenSSL
equivalents. It should be noted, that several cipher suite
names do not include the authentication used, e.g.
DES-CBC3-SHA. In these cases, RSA authentication is used.
SSL v3.0 cipher suites.
SSL_RSA_WITH_NULL_MD5 NULL-MD5
SSL_RSA_WITH_NULL_SHA NULL-SHA
SSL_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5 EXP-RC4-MD5
SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5 RC4-MD5
SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA RC4-SHA
SSL_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_RC2_CBC_40_MD5 EXP-RC2-CBC-MD5
SSL_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA EXP-DES-CBC-SHA
SSL_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA DES-CBC-SHA
SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA DES-CBC3-SHA
SSL_DH_DSS_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
SSL_DH_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
SSL_DH_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
SSL_DH_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
SSL_DH_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
SSL_DH_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
SSL_DHE_DSS_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA EXP-EDH-DSS-DES-CBC-SHA
SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA EDH-DSS-CBC-SHA
SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA
SSL_DHE_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA EXP-EDH-RSA-DES-CBC-SHA
SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA EDH-RSA-DES-CBC-SHA
SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA
SSL_DH_anon_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5 EXP-ADH-RC4-MD5
SSL_DH_anon_WITH_RC4_128_MD5 ADH-RC4-MD5
SSL_DH_anon_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA EXP-ADH-DES-CBC-SHA
SSL_DH_anon_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA ADH-DES-CBC-SHA
SSL_DH_anon_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA ADH-DES-CBC3-SHA
SSL_FORTEZZA_KEA_WITH_NULL_SHA Not implemented.
SSL_FORTEZZA_KEA_WITH_FORTEZZA_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
SSL_FORTEZZA_KEA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA Not implemented.
TLS v1.0 cipher suites.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 23
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
TLS_RSA_WITH_NULL_MD5 NULL-MD5
TLS_RSA_WITH_NULL_SHA NULL-SHA
TLS_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5 EXP-RC4-MD5
TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5 RC4-MD5
TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA RC4-SHA
TLS_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_RC2_CBC_40_MD5 EXP-RC2-CBC-MD5
TLS_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA EXP-DES-CBC-SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA DES-CBC-SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA DES-CBC3-SHA
TLS_DH_DSS_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
TLS_DH_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
TLS_DH_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
TLS_DH_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
TLS_DH_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
TLS_DH_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA Not implemented.
TLS_DHE_DSS_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA EXP-EDH-DSS-DES-CBC-SHA
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA EDH-DSS-CBC-SHA
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA
TLS_DHE_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA EXP-EDH-RSA-DES-CBC-SHA
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA EDH-RSA-DES-CBC-SHA
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA
TLS_DH_anon_EXPORT_WITH_RC4_40_MD5 EXP-ADH-RC4-MD5
TLS_DH_anon_WITH_RC4_128_MD5 ADH-RC4-MD5
TLS_DH_anon_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA EXP-ADH-DES-CBC-SHA
TLS_DH_anon_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA ADH-DES-CBC-SHA
TLS_DH_anon_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA ADH-DES-CBC3-SHA
AES ciphersuites from RFC3268, extending TLS v1.0
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA AES128-SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA AES256-SHA
TLS_DH_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA DH-DSS-AES128-SHA
TLS_DH_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA DH-DSS-AES256-SHA
TLS_DH_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA DH-RSA-AES128-SHA
TLS_DH_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA DH-RSA-AES256-SHA
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA
TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA
TLS_DH_anon_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA ADH-AES128-SHA
TLS_DH_anon_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA ADH-AES256-SHA
Additional Export 1024 and other cipher suites
Note: these ciphers can also be used in SSL v3.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 24
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
TLS_RSA_EXPORT1024_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA EXP1024-DES-CBC-SHA
TLS_RSA_EXPORT1024_WITH_RC4_56_SHA EXP1024-RC4-SHA
TLS_DHE_DSS_EXPORT1024_WITH_DES_CBC_SHA EXP1024-DHE-DSS-DES-CBC-SHA
TLS_DHE_DSS_EXPORT1024_WITH_RC4_56_SHA EXP1024-DHE-DSS-RC4-SHA
TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_RC4_128_SHA DHE-DSS-RC4-SHA
SSL v2.0 cipher suites.
SSL_CK_RC4_128_WITH_MD5 RC4-MD5
SSL_CK_RC4_128_EXPORT40_WITH_MD5 EXP-RC4-MD5
SSL_CK_RC2_128_CBC_WITH_MD5 RC2-MD5
SSL_CK_RC2_128_CBC_EXPORT40_WITH_MD5 EXP-RC2-MD5
SSL_CK_DES_64_CBC_WITH_MD5 DES-CBC-MD5
SSL_CK_DES_192_EDE3_CBC_WITH_MD5 DES-CBC3-MD5
The non-ephemeral DH modes are currently unimplemented in
OpenSSL because there is no support for DH certificates.
Some compiled versions of OpenSSL may not include all the
ciphers listed here because some ciphers were excluded at
compile time.
Verbose listing of all OpenSSL ciphers including NULL
ciphers:
openssl ciphers -v 'ALL:eNULL'
Include all ciphers except NULL and anonymous DH then sort
by strength:
openssl ciphers -v 'ALL:!ADH:@STRENGTH'
Include only 3DES ciphers and then place RSA ciphers last:
openssl ciphers -v '3DES:+RSA'
Include all RC4 ciphers but leave out those without authen-
tication:
openssl ciphers -v 'RC4:!COMPLEMENTOFDEFAULT'
Include all chiphers with RSA authentication but leave out
ciphers without encryption.
openssl ciphers -v 'RSA:!COMPLEMENTOFALL'
s_client(1), s_server(1), ssl(3)
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 25
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
The COMPLENTOFALL and COMPLEMENTOFDEFAULT selection options
were added in version 0.9.7.
config - OpenSSL CONF library configuration files
The OpenSSL CONF library can be used to read configuration
files. It is used for the OpenSSL master configuration file
openssl.cnf and in a few other places like SPKAC files and
certificate extension files for the x509 utility. OpenSSL
applications can also use the CONF library for their own
purposes.
A configuration file is divided into a number of sections.
Each section starts with a line [ section_name ] and ends
when a new section is started or end of file is reached. A
section name can consist of alphanumeric characters and
underscores.
The first section of a configuration file is special and is
referred to as the default section this is usually unnamed
and is from the start of file until the first named section.
When a name is being looked up it is first looked up in a
named section (if any) and then the default section.
The environment is mapped onto a section called ENV.
Comments can be included by preceding them with the # char-
acter
Each section in a configuration file consists of a number of
name and value pairs of the form name=value
The name string can contain any alphanumeric characters as
well as a few punctuation symbols such as . , ; and _.
The value string consists of the string following the =
character until end of line with any leading and trailing
white space removed.
The value string undergoes variable expansion. This can be
done by including the form $var or ${var}: this will substi-
tute the value of the named variable in the current section.
It is also possible to substitute a value from another sec-
tion using the syntax $section::name or ${section::name}. By
using the form $ENV::name environment variables can be sub-
stituted. It is also possible to assign values to environ-
ment variables by using the name ENV::name, this will work
if the program looks up environment variables using the CONF
library instead of calling getenv() directly.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 26
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
It is possible to escape certain characters by using any
kind of quote or the \ character. By making the last charac-
ter of a line a \ a value string can be spread across multi-
ple lines. In addition the sequences \n, \r, \b and \t are
recognized.
In OpenSSL 0.9.7 and later applications can automatically
configure certain aspects of OpenSSL using the master
OpenSSL configuration file, or optionally an alternative
configuration file. The openssl utility includes this func-
tionality: any sub command uses the master OpenSSL confi-
guration file unless an option is used in the sub command to
use an alternative configuration file.
To enable library configuration the default section needs to
contain an appropriate line which points to the main confi-
guration section. The default name is openssl_conf which is
used by the openssl utility. Other applications may use an
alternative name such as myapplicaton_conf.
The configuration section should consist of a set of name
value pairs which contain specific module configuration
information. The name represents the name of the configura-
tion module the meaning of the value is module specific: it
may, for example, represent a further configuration section
containing configuration module specific information. E.g.
openssl_conf = openssl_init
[openssl_init]
oid_section = new_oids
engines = engine_section
[new_oids]
... new oids here ...
[engine_section]
... engine stuff here ...
Currently there are two configuration modules. One for ASN1
objects another for ENGINE configuration.
ASN1 OBJECT CONFIGURATION MODULE
This module has the name oid_section. The value of this
variable points to a section containing name value pairs of
OIDs: the name is the OID short and long name, the value is
the numerical form of the OID. Although some of the openssl
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 27
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
utility sub commands already have their own ASN1 OBJECT sec-
tion functionality not all do. By using the ASN1 OBJECT con-
figuration module all the openssl utility sub commands can
see the new objects as well as any compliant applications.
For example:
[new_oids]
some_new_oid = 1.2.3.4
some_other_oid = 1.2.3.5
ENGINE CONFIGURATION MODULE
This ENGINE configuration module has the name engines. The
value of this variable points to a section containing
further ENGINE configuration information.
The section pointed to by engines is a table of engine names
(though see engine_id below) and further sections containing
configuration informations specific to each ENGINE.
Each ENGINE specific section is used to set default algo-
rithms, load dynamic, perform initialization and send ctrls.
The actual operation performed depends on the command name
which is the name of the name value pair. The currently sup-
ported commands are listed below.
For example:
[engine_section]
# Configure ENGINE named "foo"
foo = foo_section
# Configure ENGINE named "bar"
bar = bar_section
[foo_section]
... foo ENGINE specific commands ...
[bar_section]
... "bar" ENGINE specific commands ...
The command engine_id is used to give the ENGINE name. If
used this command must be first. For example:
[engine_section]
# This would normally handle an ENGINE named "foo"
foo = foo_section
[foo_section]
# Override default name and use "myfoo" instead.
engine_id = myfoo
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 28
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
The command dynamic_path loads and adds an ENGINE from the
given path. It is equivalent to sending the ctrls SO_PATH
with the path argument followed by LIST_ADD with value 2 and
LOAD to the dynamic ENGINE. If this is not the required
behaviour then alternative ctrls can be sent directly to the
dynamic ENGINE using ctrl commands.
The command init determines whether to initialize the
ENGINE. If the value is 0 the ENGINE will not be initial-
ized, if 1 and attempt it made to initialized the ENGINE
immediately. If the init command is not present then an
attempt will be made to initialize the ENGINE after all com-
mands in its section have been processed.
The command default_algorithms sets the default algorithms
an ENGINE will supply using the functions
ENGINE_set_default_string()
If the name matches none of the above command names it is
assumed to be a ctrl command which is sent to the ENGINE.
The value of the command is the argument to the ctrl com-
mand. If the value is the string EMPTY then no value is sent
to the command.
For example:
[engine_section]
# Configure ENGINE named "foo"
foo = foo_section
[foo_section]
# Load engine from DSO
dynamic_path = /some/path/fooengine.so
# A foo specific ctrl.
some_ctrl = some_value
# Another ctrl that doesn't take a value.
other_ctrl = EMPTY
# Supply all default algorithms
default_algorithms = ALL
If a configuration file attempts to expand a variable that
doesn't exist then an error is flagged and the file will not
load. This can happen if an attempt is made to expand an
environment variable that doesn't exist. For example in a
previous version of OpenSSL the default OpenSSL master con-
figuration file used the value of HOME which may not be
defined on non Unix systems and would cause an error.
This can be worked around by including a default section to
provide a default value: then if the environment lookup
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 29
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
fails the default value will be used instead. For this to
work properly the default value must be defined earlier in
the configuration file than the expansion. See the EXAMPLES
section for an example of how to do this.
If the same variable exists in the same section then all but
the last value will be silently ignored. In certain cir-
cumstances such as with DNs the same field may occur multi-
ple times. This is usually worked around by ignoring any
characters before an initial . e.g.
1.OU="My first OU"
2.OU="My Second OU"
Here is a sample configuration file using some of the
features mentioned above.
# This is the default section.
HOME=/temp
RANDFILE= ${ENV::HOME}/.rnd
configdir=$ENV::HOME/config
[ section_one ]
# We are now in section one.
# Quotes permit leading and trailing whitespace
any = " any variable name "
other = A string that can \
cover several lines \
by including \\ characters
message = Hello World\n
[ section_two ]
greeting = $section_one::message
This next example shows how to expand environment variables
safely.
Suppose you want a variable called tmpfile to refer to a
temporary filename. The directory it is placed in can deter-
mined by the the TEMP or TMP environment variables but they
may not be set to any value at all. If you just include the
environment variable names and the variable doesn't exist
then this will cause an error when an attempt is made to
load the configuration file. By making use of the default
section both values can be looked up with TEMP taking
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 30
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
priority and /tmp used if neither is defined:
TMP=/tmp
# The above value is used if TMP isn't in the environment
TEMP=$ENV::TMP
# The above value is used if TEMP isn't in the environment
tmpfile=${ENV::TEMP}/tmp.filename
Currently there is no way to include characters using the
octal \nnn form. Strings are all null terminated so nulls
cannot form part of the value.
The escaping isn't quite right: if you want to use sequences
like \n you can't use any quote escaping on the same line.
Files are loaded in a single pass. This means that an vari-
able expansion will only work if the variables referenced
are defined earlier in the file.
x509(1), req(1), ca(1)
crl - CRL utility
openssl crl [-inform PEM|DER] [-outform PEM|DER] [-text]
[-in filename] [-out filename] [-noout] [-hash] [-issuer]
[-lastupdate] [-nextupdate] [-CAfile file] [-CApath dir]
The crl command processes CRL files in DER or PEM format.
-inform DER|PEM
This specifies the input format. DER format is DER
encoded CRL structure. PEM (the default) is a base64
encoded version of the DER form with header and footer
lines.
-outform DER|PEM
This specifies the output format, the options have the
same meaning as the -inform option.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read from or stan-
dard input if this option is not specified.
-out filename
specifies the output filename to write to or standard
output by default.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 31
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-text
print out the CRL in text form.
-noout
don't output the encoded version of the CRL.
-hash
output a hash of the issuer name. This can be use to
lookup CRLs in a directory by issuer name.
-issuer
output the issuer name.
-lastupdate
output the lastUpdate field.
-nextupdate
output the nextUpdate field.
-CAfile file
verify the signature on a CRL by looking up the issuing
certificate in file
-CApath dir
verify the signature on a CRL by looking up the issuing
certificate in dir. This directory must be a standard
certificate directory: that is a hash of each subject
name (using x509 -hash) should be linked to each certi-
ficate.
The PEM CRL format uses the header and footer lines:
-----BEGIN X509 CRL-----
-----END X509 CRL-----
Convert a CRL file from PEM to DER:
openssl crl -in crl.pem -outform DER -out crl.der
Output the text form of a DER encoded certificate:
openssl crl -in crl.der -text -noout
Ideally it should be possible to create a CRL using
appropriate options and files too.
crl2pkcs7(1), ca(1), x509(1)
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 32
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
crl2pkcs7 - Create a PKCS#7 structure from a CRL and certi-
ficates.
openssl crl2pkcs7 [-inform PEM|DER] [-outform PEM|DER] [-in
filename] [-out filename] [-certfile filename] [-nocrl]
The crl2pkcs7 command takes an optional CRL and one or more
certificates and converts them into a PKCS#7 degenerate
"certificates only" structure.
-inform DER|PEM
This specifies the CRL input format. DER format is DER
encoded CRL structure.PEM (the default) is a base64
encoded version of the DER form with header and footer
lines.
-outform DER|PEM
This specifies the PKCS#7 structure output format. DER
format is DER encoded PKCS#7 structure.PEM (the default)
is a base64 encoded version of the DER form with header
and footer lines.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read a CRL from or
standard input if this option is not specified.
-out filename
specifies the output filename to write the PKCS#7 struc-
ture to or standard output by default.
-certfile filename
specifies a filename containing one or more certificates
in PEM format. All certificates in the file will be
added to the PKCS#7 structure. This option can be used
more than once to read certificates form multiple files.
-nocrl
normally a CRL is included in the output file. With this
option no CRL is included in the output file and a CRL
is not read from the input file.
Create a PKCS#7 structure from a certificate and CRL:
openssl crl2pkcs7 -in crl.pem -certfile cert.pem -out p7.pem
Creates a PKCS#7 structure in DER format with no CRL from
several different certificates:
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 33
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
openssl crl2pkcs7 -nocrl -certfile newcert.pem
-certfile demoCA/cacert.pem -outform DER -out p7.der
The output file is a PKCS#7 signed data structure containing
no signers and just certificates and an optional CRL.
This utility can be used to send certificates and CAs to
Netscape as part of the certificate enrollment process. This
involves sending the DER encoded output as MIME type
application/x-x509-user-cert.
The PEM encoded form with the header and footer lines
removed can be used to install user certificates and CAs in
MSIE using the Xenroll control.
pkcs7(1)
dgst, md5, md4, md2, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, sha512,
ripemd160 - message digests
openssl dgst
[-md5|-md4|-md2|-sha1|-sha224|-sha256|-sha384|-sha512|-ripemd160|-dss1]
[-c] [-d] [-hex] [-binary] [-hmac arg] [-non-fips-allow]
[-out filename] [-sign filename] [-passin arg] [-verify
filename] [-prverify filename] [-signature filename]
[file...]
[md5|md4|md2|sha1|sha224|sha256|sha384|sha512|ripemd160]
[-c] [-d] [file...]
The digest functions output the message digest of a supplied
file or files in hexadecimal form. They can also be used for
digital signing and verification.
-c print out the digest in two digit groups separated by
colons, only relevant if hex format output is used.
-d print out BIO debugging information.
-hex
digest is to be output as a hex dump. This is the
default case for a "normal" digest as opposed to a digi-
tal signature.
-binary
output the digest or signature in binary form.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 34
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-hmac arg
set the HMAC key to "arg".
-non-fips-allow
allow use of non FIPS digest.
-out filename
filename to output to, or standard output by default.
-sign filename
digitally sign the digest using the private key in
"filename".
-passin arg
the private key password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-verify filename
verify the signature using the the public key in
"filename". The output is either "Verification OK" or
"Verification Failure".
-prverify filename
verify the signature using the the private key in
"filename".
-signature filename
the actual signature to verify.
-rand file(s)
a file or files containing random data used to seed the
random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)). Multiple files can be specified separated
by a OS-dependent character. The separator is ; for
MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
file...
file or files to digest. If no files are specified then
standard input is used.
The digest of choice for all new applications is SHA2. Other
digests are however still widely used.
If you wish to sign or verify data using the DSA algorithm
then the dss1 digest must be used.
A source of random numbers is required for certain signing
algorithms, in particular DSA.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 35
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
The signing and verify options should only be used if a sin-
gle file is being signed or verified.
dhparam - DH parameter manipulation and generation
openssl dhparam [-inform DER|PEM] [-outform DER|PEM] [-in
filename] [-out filename] [-dsaparam] [-noout] [-text] [-C]
[-2] [-5] [-rand file(s)] [-engine id] [numbits]
This command is used to manipulate DH parameter files.
-inform DER|PEM
This specifies the input format. The DER option uses an
ASN1 DER encoded form compatible with the PKCS#3
DHparameter structure. The PEM form is the default for-
mat: it consists of the DER format base64 encoded with
additional header and footer lines.
-outform DER|PEM
This specifies the output format, the options have the
same meaning as the -inform option.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read parameters
from or standard input if this option is not specified.
-out filename
This specifies the output filename parameters to. Stan-
dard output is used if this option is not present. The
output filename should not be the same as the input
filename.
-dsaparam
If this option is used, DSA rather than DH parameters
are read or created; they are converted to DH format.
Otherwise, "strong" primes (such that (p-1)/2 is also
prime) will be used for DH parameter generation.
DH parameter generation with the -dsaparam option is
much faster, and the recommended exponent length is
shorter, which makes DH key exchange more efficient.
Beware that with such DSA-style DH parameters, a fresh
DH key should be created for each use to avoid small-
subgroup attacks that may be possible otherwise.
-2, -5
The generator to use, either 2 or 5. 2 is the default.
If present then the input file is ignored and parameters
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 36
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
are generated instead.
-rand file(s)
a file or files containing random data used to seed the
random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)). Multiple files can be specified separated
by a OS-dependent character. The separator is ; for
MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
numbits
this option specifies that a parameter set should be
generated of size numbits. It must be the last option.
If not present then a value of 512 is used. If this
option is present then the input file is ignored and
parameters are generated instead.
-noout
this option inhibits the output of the encoded version
of the parameters.
-text
this option prints out the DH parameters in human read-
able form.
-C this option converts the parameters into C code. The
parameters can then be loaded by calling the
get_dhnumbits() function.
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
The program dhparam combines the functionality of the pro-
grams dh and gendh in previous versions of OpenSSL and
SSLeay. The dh and gendh programs are retained for now but
may have different purposes in future versions of OpenSSL.
PEM format DH parameters use the header and footer lines:
-----BEGIN DH PARAMETERS-----
-----END DH PARAMETERS-----
OpenSSL currently only supports the older PKCS#3 DH, not the
newer X9.42 DH.
This program manipulates DH parameters not keys.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 37
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
There should be a way to generate and manipulate DH keys.
dsaparam(1)
The dhparam command was added in OpenSSL 0.9.5. The
-dsaparam option was added in OpenSSL 0.9.6.
dsa - DSA key processing
openssl dsa [-inform PEM|DER] [-outform PEM|DER] [-in
filename] [-passin arg] [-out filename] [-passout arg]
[-des] [-des3] [-text] [-noout] [-modulus] [-pubin]
[-pubout] [-engine id]
The dsa command processes DSA keys. They can be converted
between various forms and their components printed out. Note
This command uses the traditional SSLeay compatible format
for private key encryption: newer applications should use
the more secure PKCS#8 format using the pkcs8
-inform DER|PEM
This specifies the input format. The DER option with a
private key uses an ASN1 DER encoded form of an ASN.1
SEQUENCE consisting of the values of version (currently
zero), p, q, g, the public and private key components
respectively as ASN.1 INTEGERs. When used with a public
key it uses a SubjectPublicKeyInfo structure: it is an
error if the key is not DSA.
The PEM form is the default format: it consists of the
DER format base64 encoded with additional header and
footer lines. In the case of a private key PKCS#8 format
is also accepted.
-outform DER|PEM
This specifies the output format, the options have the
same meaning as the -inform option.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read a key from or
standard input if this option is not specified. If the
key is encrypted a pass phrase will be prompted for.
-passin arg
the input file password source. For more information
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 38
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-out filename
This specifies the output filename to write a key to or
standard output by is not specified. If any encryption
options are set then a pass phrase will be prompted for.
The output filename should not be the same as the input
filename.
-passout arg
the output file password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-des|-des3
These options encrypt the private key with the DES or
triple DES ciphers respectively before outputting it. A
pass phrase is prompted for. If none of these options is
specified the key is written in plain text. This means
that using the dsa utility to read in an encrypted key
with no encryption option can be used to remove the pass
phrase from a key, or by setting the encryption options
it can be use to add or change the pass phrase. These
options can only be used with PEM format output files.
-text
prints out the public, private key components and param-
eters.
-noout
this option prevents output of the encoded version of
the key.
-modulus
this option prints out the value of the public key com-
ponent of the key.
-pubin
by default a private key is read from the input file:
with this option a public key is read instead.
-pubout
by default a private key is output. With this option a
public key will be output instead. This option is
automatically set if the input is a public key.
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 39
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
available algorithms.
The PEM private key format uses the header and footer lines:
-----BEGIN DSA PRIVATE KEY-----
-----END DSA PRIVATE KEY-----
The PEM public key format uses the header and footer lines:
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
To remove the pass phrase on a DSA private key:
openssl dsa -in key.pem -out keyout.pem
To encrypt a private key using triple DES:
openssl dsa -in key.pem -des3 -out keyout.pem
To convert a private key from PEM to DER format:
openssl dsa -in key.pem -outform DER -out keyout.der
To print out the components of a private key to standard
output:
openssl dsa -in key.pem -text -noout
To just output the public part of a private key:
openssl dsa -in key.pem -pubout -out pubkey.pem
dsaparam(1), gendsa(1), rsa(1), genrsa(1)
dsaparam - DSA parameter manipulation and generation
openssl dsaparam [-inform DER|PEM] [-outform DER|PEM] [-in
filename] [-out filename] [-noout] [-text] [-C] [-rand
file(s)] [-genkey] [-engine id] [numbits]
This command is used to manipulate or generate DSA parameter
files.
-inform DER|PEM
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 40
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
This specifies the input format. The DER option uses an
ASN1 DER encoded form compatible with RFC2459 (PKIX)
DSS-Parms that is a SEQUENCE consisting of p, q and g
respectively. The PEM form is the default format: it
consists of the DER format base64 encoded with addi-
tional header and footer lines.
-outform DER|PEM
This specifies the output format, the options have the
same meaning as the -inform option.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read parameters
from or standard input if this option is not specified.
If the numbits parameter is included then this option
will be ignored.
-out filename
This specifies the output filename parameters to. Stan-
dard output is used if this option is not present. The
output filename should not be the same as the input
filename.
-noout
this option inhibits the output of the encoded version
of the parameters.
-text
this option prints out the DSA parameters in human read-
able form.
-C this option converts the parameters into C code. The
parameters can then be loaded by calling the
get_dsaXXX() function.
-genkey
this option will generate a DSA either using the speci-
fied or generated parameters.
-rand file(s)
a file or files containing random data used to seed the
random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)). Multiple files can be specified separated
by a OS-dependent character. The separator is ; for
MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
numbits
this option specifies that a parameter set should be
generated of size numbits. It must be the last option.
If this option is included then the input file (if any)
is ignored.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 41
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
PEM format DSA parameters use the header and footer lines:
-----BEGIN DSA PARAMETERS-----
-----END DSA PARAMETERS-----
DSA parameter generation is a slow process and as a result
the same set of DSA parameters is often used to generate
several distinct keys.
gendsa(1), dsa(1), genrsa(1), rsa(1)
enc - symmetric cipher routines
openssl enc -ciphername [-in filename] [-out filename]
[-pass arg] [-e] [-d] [-a] [-A] [-k password] [-kfile
filename] [-K key] [-iv IV] [-p] [-P] [-bufsize number]
[-nopad] [-debug]
The symmetric cipher commands allow data to be encrypted or
decrypted using various block and stream ciphers using keys
based on passwords or explicitly provided. Base64 encoding
or decoding can also be performed either by itself or in
addition to the encryption or decryption.
-in filename
the input filename, standard input by default.
-out filename
the output filename, standard output by default.
-pass arg
the password source. For more information about the for-
mat of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in
openssl(1).
-salt
use a salt in the key derivation routines. This option
should ALWAYS be used unless compatibility with previous
versions of OpenSSL or SSLeay is required. This option
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 42
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
is only present on OpenSSL versions 0.9.5 or above.
-nosalt
don't use a salt in the key derivation routines. This is
the default for compatibility with previous versions of
OpenSSL and SSLeay.
-e encrypt the input data: this is the default.
-d decrypt the input data.
-a base64 process the data. This means that if encryption
is taking place the data is base64 encoded after encryp-
tion. If decryption is set then the input data is base64
decoded before being decrypted.
-A if the -a option is set then base64 process the data on
one line.
-k password
the password to derive the key from. This is for compa-
tibility with previous versions of OpenSSL. Superseded
by the -pass argument.
-kfile filename
read the password to derive the key from the first line
of filename. This is for compatibility with previous
versions of OpenSSL. Superseded by the -pass argument.
-S salt
the actual salt to use: this must be represented as a
string comprised only of hex digits.
-K key
the actual key to use: this must be represented as a
string comprised only of hex digits. If only the key is
specified, the IV must additionally specified using the
-iv option. When both a key and a password are speci-
fied, the key given with the -K option will be used and
the IV generated from the password will be taken. It
probably does not make much sense to specify both key
and password.
-iv IV
the actual IV to use: this must be represented as a
string comprised only of hex digits. When only the key
is specified using the -K option, the IV must explicitly
be defined. When a password is being specified using one
of the other options, the IV is generated from this
password.
-p print out the key and IV used.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 43
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-P print out the key and IV used then immediately exit:
don't do any encryption or decryption.
-bufsize number
set the buffer size for I/O
-nopad
disable standard block padding
-debug
debug the BIOs used for I/O.
The program can be called either as openssl ciphername or
openssl enc -ciphername.
A password will be prompted for to derive the key and IV if
necessary.
The -salt option should ALWAYS be used if the key is being
derived from a password unless you want compatibility with
previous versions of OpenSSL and SSLeay.
Without the -salt option it is possible to perform efficient
dictionary attacks on the password and to attack stream
cipher encrypted data. The reason for this is that without
the salt the same password always generates the same encryp-
tion key. When the salt is being used the first eight bytes
of the encrypted data are reserved for the salt: it is gen-
erated at random when encrypting a file and read from the
encrypted file when it is decrypted.
Some of the ciphers do not have large keys and others have
security implications if not used correctly. A beginner is
advised to just use a strong block cipher in CBC mode such
as bf or des3.
All the block ciphers normally use PKCS#5 padding also known
as standard block padding: this allows a rudimentary
integrity or password check to be performed. However since
the chance of random data passing the test is better than 1
in 256 it isn't a very good test.
If padding is disabled then the input data must be a multi-
ple of the cipher block length.
All RC2 ciphers have the same key and effective key length.
The Blowfish algorithm uses a 128 bit key.
base64 Base 64
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 44
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
bf-cbc Blowfish in CBC mode
bf Alias for bf-cbc
bf-cfb Blowfish in CFB mode
bf-ecb Blowfish in ECB mode
bf-ofb Blowfish in OFB mode
cast-cbc CAST in CBC mode
cast Alias for cast-cbc
cast5-cbc CAST5 in CBC mode
cast5-cfb CAST5 in CFB mode
cast5-ecb CAST5 in ECB mode
cast5-ofb CAST5 in OFB mode
des-cbc DES in CBC mode
des Alias for des-cbc
des-cfb DES in CBC mode
des-ofb DES in OFB mode
des-ecb DES in ECB mode
des-ede-cbc Two key triple DES EDE in CBC mode
des-ede Two key triple DES EDE in ECB mode
des-ede-cfb Two key triple DES EDE in CFB mode
des-ede-ofb Two key triple DES EDE in OFB mode
des-ede3-cbc Three key triple DES EDE in CBC mode
des-ede3 Three key triple DES EDE in ECB mode
des3 Alias for des-ede3-cbc
des-ede3-cfb Three key triple DES EDE CFB mode
des-ede3-ofb Three key triple DES EDE in OFB mode
desx DESX algorithm.
rc2-cbc 128 bit RC2 in CBC mode
rc2 Alias for rc2-cbc
rc2-cfb 128 bit RC2 in CFB mode
rc2-ecb 128 bit RC2 in ECB mode
rc2-ofb 128 bit RC2 in OFB mode
rc2-64-cbc 64 bit RC2 in CBC mode
rc2-40-cbc 40 bit RC2 in CBC mode
rc4 128 bit RC4
rc4-64 64 bit RC4
rc4-40 40 bit RC4
Just base64 encode a binary file:
openssl base64 -in file.bin -out file.b64
Decode the same file
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 45
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
openssl base64 -d -in file.b64 -out file.bin
Encrypt a file using triple DES in CBC mode using a prompted
password:
openssl des3 -salt -in file.txt -out file.des3
Decrypt a file using a supplied password:
openssl des3 -d -salt -in file.des3 -out file.txt -k mypassword
Encrypt a file then base64 encode it (so it can be sent via
mail for example) using Blowfish in CBC mode:
openssl bf -a -salt -in file.txt -out file.bf
Base64 decode a file then decrypt it:
openssl bf -d -salt -a -in file.bf -out file.txt
Decrypt some data using a supplied 40 bit RC4 key:
openssl rc4-40 -in file.rc4 -out file.txt -K 0102030405
The -A option when used with large files doesn't work prop-
erly.
There should be an option to allow an iteration count to be
included.
The enc program only supports a fixed number of algorithms
with certain parameters. So if, for example, you want to use
RC2 with a 76 bit key or RC4 with an 84 bit key you can't
use this program.
errstr - lookup error codes
openssl errstr error_code
Sometimes an application will not load error message and
only numerical forms will be available. The errstr utility
can be used to display the meaning of the hex code. The hex
code is the hex digits after the second colon.
The error code:
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 46
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
27594:error:2006D080:lib(32):func(109):reason(128):bss_file.c:107:
can be displayed with:
openssl errstr 2006D080
to produce the error message:
error:2006D080:BIO routines:BIO_new_file:no such file
err(3), ERR_load_crypto_strings(3),
SSL_load_error_strings(3)
gendsa - generate a DSA private key from a set of parameters
openssl gendsa [-out filename] [-des] [-des3] [-rand
file(s)] [-engine id] [paramfile]
The gendsa command generates a DSA private key from a DSA
parameter file (which will be typically generated by the
openssl dsaparam command).
-des|-des3
These options encrypt the private key with the DES or
triple DES ciphers respectively before outputting it. A
pass phrase is prompted for. If none of these options is
specified no encryption is used.
-rand file(s)
a file or files containing random data used to seed the
random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)). Multiple files can be specified separated
by a OS-dependent character. The separator is ; for
MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
paramfile
This option specifies the DSA parameter file to use. The
parameters in this file determine the size of the
private key. DSA parameters can be generated and exam-
ined using the openssl dsaparam command.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 47
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
DSA key generation is little more than random number genera-
tion so it is much quicker that RSA key generation for exam-
ple.
dsaparam(1), dsa(1), genrsa(1), rsa(1)
genrsa - generate an RSA private key
openssl genrsa [-out filename] [-passout arg] [-des] [-des3]
[-f4] [-3] [-rand file(s)] [-engine id] [numbits]
The genrsa command generates an RSA private key.
-out filename
the output filename. If this argument is not specified
then standard output is used.
-passout arg
the output file password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-des|-des3
These options encrypt the private key with the DES or
triple DES ciphers respectively before outputting it. If
none of these options is specified no encryption is
used. If encryption is used a pass phrase is prompted
for if it is not supplied via the -passout argument.
-F4|-3
the public exponent to use, either 65537 or 3. The
default is 65537.
-rand file(s)
a file or files containing random data used to seed the
random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)). Multiple files can be specified separated
by a OS-dependent character. The separator is ; for
MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 48
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
numbits
the size of the private key to generate in bits. This
must be the last option specified. The default is 512.
RSA private key generation essentially involves the genera-
tion of two prime numbers. When generating a private key
various symbols will be output to indicate the progress of
the generation. A . represents each number which has passed
an initial sieve test, + means a number has passed a single
round of the Miller-Rabin primality test. A newline means
that the number has passed all the prime tests (the actual
number depends on the key size).
Because key generation is a random process the time taken to
generate a key may vary somewhat.
A quirk of the prime generation algorithm is that it cannot
generate small primes. Therefore the number of bits should
not be less that 64. For typical private keys this will not
matter because for security reasons they will be much larger
(typically 1024 bits).
gendsa(1)
nseq - create or examine a netscape certificate sequence
openssl nseq [-in filename] [-out filename] [-toseq]
The nseq command takes a file containing a Netscape certifi-
cate sequence and prints out the certificates contained in
it or takes a file of certificates and converts it into a
Netscape certificate sequence.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read or standard
input if this option is not specified.
-out filename
specifies the output filename or standard output by
default.
-toseq
normally a Netscape certificate sequence will be input
and the output is the certificates contained in it. With
the -toseq option the situation is reversed: a Netscape
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 49
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
certificate sequence is created from a file of certifi-
cates.
Output the certificates in a Netscape certificate sequence
openssl nseq -in nseq.pem -out certs.pem
Create a Netscape certificate sequence
openssl nseq -in certs.pem -toseq -out nseq.pem
The PEM encoded form uses the same headers and footers as a
certificate:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
A Netscape certificate sequence is a Netscape specific form
that can be sent to browsers as an alternative to the stan-
dard PKCS#7 format when several certificates are sent to the
browser: for example during certificate enrollment. It is
used by Netscape certificate server for example.
This program needs a few more options: like allowing DER or
PEM input and output files and allowing multiple certificate
files to be used.
ocsp - Online Certificate Status Protocol utility
openssl ocsp [-out file] [-issuer file] [-cert file]
[-serial n] [-signer file] [-signkey file] [-sign_other
file] [-no_certs] [-req_text] [-resp_text] [-text] [-reqout
file] [-respout file] [-reqin file] [-respin file] [-nonce]
[-no_nonce] [-url URL] [-host host:n] [-path] [-CApath dir]
[-CAfile file] [-VAfile file] [-validity_period n]
[-status_age n] [-noverify] [-verify_other file]
[-trust_other] [-no_intern] [-no_signature_verify]
[-no_cert_verify] [-no_chain] [-no_cert_checks] [-port num]
[-index file] [-CA file] [-rsigner file] [-rkey file]
[-rother file] [-resp_no_certs] [-nmin n] [-ndays n]
[-resp_key_id] [-nrequest n]
The Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) enables appli-
cations to determine the (revocation) state of an identified
certificate (RFC 2560).
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 50
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
The ocsp command performs many common OCSP tasks. It can be
used to print out requests and responses, create requests
and send queries to an OCSP responder and behave like a mini
OCSP server itself.
-out filename
specify output filename, default is standard output.
-issuer filename
This specifies the current issuer certificate. This
option can be used multiple times. The certificate
specified in filename must be in PEM format.
-cert filename
Add the certificate filename to the request. The issuer
certificate is taken from the previous issuer option, or
an error occurs if no issuer certificate is specified.
-serial num
Same as the cert option except the certificate with
serial number num is added to the request. The serial
number is interpreted as a decimal integer unless pre-
ceded by 0x. Negative integers can also be specified by
preceding the value by a - sign.
-signer filename, -signkey filename
Sign the OCSP request using the certificate specified in
the signer option and the private key specified by the
signkey option. If the signkey option is not present
then the private key is read from the same file as the
certificate. If neither option is specified then the
OCSP request is not signed.
-sign_other filename
Additional certificates to include in the signed
request.
-nonce, -no_nonce
Add an OCSP nonce extension to a request or disable OCSP
nonce addition. Normally if an OCSP request is input
using the respin option no nonce is added: using the
nonce option will force addition of a nonce. If an OCSP
request is being created (using cert and serial options)
a nonce is automatically added specifying no_nonce over-
rides this.
-req_text, -resp_text, -text
print out the text form of the OCSP request, response or
both respectively.
-reqout file, -respout file
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 51
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
write out the DER encoded certificate request or
response to file.
-reqin file, -respin file
read OCSP request or response file from file. These
option are ignored if OCSP request or response creation
is implied by other options (for example with serial,
cert and host options).
-url responder_url
specify the responder URL. Both HTTP and HTTPS (SSL/TLS)
URLs can be specified.
-host hostname:port, -path pathname
if the host option is present then the OCSP request is
sent to the host hostname on port port. path specifies
the HTTP path name to use or "/" by default.
-CAfile file, -CApath pathname
file or pathname containing trusted CA certificates.
These are used to verify the signature on the OCSP
response.
-verify_other file
file containing additional certificates to search when
attempting to locate the OCSP response signing certifi-
cate. Some responders omit the actual signer's certifi-
cate from the response: this option can be used to sup-
ply the necessary certificate in such cases.
-trust_other
the certificates specified by the -verify_certs option
should be explicitly trusted and no additional checks
will be performed on them. This is useful when the com-
plete responder certificate chain is not available or
trusting a root CA is not appropriate.
-VAfile file
file containing explicitly trusted responder certifi-
cates. Equivalent to the -verify_certs and -trust_other
options.
-noverify
don't attempt to verify the OCSP response signature or
the nonce values. This option will normally only be used
for debugging since it disables all verification of the
responders certificate.
-no_intern
ignore certificates contained in the OCSP response when
searching for the signers certificate. With this option
the signers certificate must be specified with either
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 52
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
the -verify_certs or -VAfile options.
-no_signature_verify
don't check the signature on the OCSP response. Since
this option tolerates invalid signatures on OCSP
responses it will normally only be used for testing pur-
poses.
-no_cert_verify
don't verify the OCSP response signers certificate at
all. Since this option allows the OCSP response to be
signed by any certificate it should only be used for
testing purposes.
-no_chain
do not use certificates in the response as additional
untrusted CA certificates.
-no_cert_checks
don't perform any additional checks on the OCSP response
signers certificate. That is do not make any checks to
see if the signers certificate is authorised to provide
the necessary status information: as a result this
option should only be used for testing purposes.
-validity_period nsec, -status_age age
these options specify the range of times, in seconds,
which will be tolerated in an OCSP response. Each certi-
ficate status response includes a notBefore time and an
optional notAfter time. The current time should fall
between these two values, but the interval between the
two times may be only a few seconds. In practice the
OCSP responder and clients clocks may not be precisely
synchronised and so such a check may fail. To avoid this
the -validity_period option can be used to specify an
acceptable error range in seconds, the default value is
5 minutes.
If the notAfter time is omitted from a response then
this means that new status information is immediately
available. In this case the age of the notBefore field
is checked to see it is not older than age seconds old.
By default this additional check is not performed.
-index indexfile
indexfile is a text index file in ca format containing
certificate revocation information.
If the index option is specified the ocsp utility is in
responder mode, otherwise it is in client mode. The
request(s) the responder processes can be either
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 53
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
specified on the command line (using issuer and serial
options), supplied in a file (using the respin option)
or via external OCSP clients (if port or url is speci-
fied).
If the index option is present then the CA and rsigner
options must also be present.
-CA file
CA certificate corresponding to the revocation informa-
tion in indexfile.
-rsigner file
The certificate to sign OCSP responses with.
-rother file
Additional certificates to include in the OCSP response.
-resp_no_certs
Don't include any certificates in the OCSP response.
-resp_key_id
Identify the signer certificate using the key ID,
default is to use the subject name.
-rkey file
The private key to sign OCSP responses with: if not
present the file specified in the rsigner option is
used.
-port portnum
Port to listen for OCSP requests on. The port may also
be specified using the url option.
-nrequest number
The OCSP server will exit after receiving number
requests, default unlimited.
-nmin minutes, -ndays days
Number of minutes or days when fresh revocation informa-
tion is available: used in the nextUpdate field. If nei-
ther option is present then the nextUpdate field is
omitted meaning fresh revocation information is immedi-
ately available.
OCSP Response verification.
OCSP Response follows the rules specified in RFC2560.
Initially the OCSP responder certificate is located and the
signature on the OCSP request checked using the responder
certificate's public key.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
Then a normal certificate verify is performed on the OCSP
responder certificate building up a certificate chain in the
process. The locations of the trusted certificates used to
build the chain can be specified by the CAfile and CApath
options or they will be looked for in the standard OpenSSL
certificates directory.
If the initial verify fails then the OCSP verify process
halts with an error.
Otherwise the issuing CA certificate in the request is com-
pared to the OCSP responder certificate: if there is a match
then the OCSP verify succeeds.
Otherwise the OCSP responder certificate's CA is checked
against the issuing CA certificate in the request. If there
is a match and the OCSPSigning extended key usage is present
in the OCSP responder certificate then the OCSP verify
succeeds.
Otherwise the root CA of the OCSP responders CA is checked
to see if it is trusted for OCSP signing. If it is the OCSP
verify succeeds.
If none of these checks is successful then the OCSP verify
fails.
What this effectively means if that if the OCSP responder
certificate is authorised directly by the CA it is issuing
revocation information about (and it is correctly config-
ured) then verification will succeed.
If the OCSP responder is a "global responder" which can give
details about multiple CAs and has its own separate certifi-
cate chain then its root CA can be trusted for OCSP signing.
For example:
openssl x509 -in ocspCA.pem -addtrust OCSPSigning -out trustedCA.pem
Alternatively the responder certificate itself can be expli-
citly trusted with the -VAfile option.
As noted, most of the verify options are for testing or
debugging purposes. Normally only the -CApath, -CAfile and
(if the responder is a 'global VA') -VAfile options need to
be used.
The OCSP server is only useful for test and demonstration
purposes: it is not really usable as a full OCSP responder.
It contains only a very simple HTTP request handling and can
only handle the POST form of OCSP queries. It also handles
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
requests serially meaning it cannot respond to new requests
until it has processed the current one. The text index file
format of revocation is also inefficient for large quanti-
ties of revocation data.
It is possible to run the ocsp application in responder mode
via a CGI script using the respin and respout options.
Create an OCSP request and write it to a file:
openssl ocsp -issuer issuer.pem -cert c1.pem -cert c2.pem -reqout req.der
Send a query to an OCSP responder with URL
http://ocsp.myhost.com/ save the response to a file and
print it out in text form
openssl ocsp -issuer issuer.pem -cert c1.pem -cert c2.pem \
-url http://ocsp.myhost.com/ -resp_text -respout resp.der
Read in an OCSP response and print out text form:
openssl ocsp -respin resp.der -text
OCSP server on port 8888 using a standard ca configuration,
and a separate responder certificate. All requests and
responses are printed to a file.
openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -port 8888 -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
-text -out log.txt
As above but exit after processing one request:
openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -port 8888 -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
-nrequest 1
Query status information using internally generated request:
openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
-issuer demoCA/cacert.pem -serial 1
Query status information using request read from a file,
write response to a second file.
openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
-reqin req.der -respout resp.der
=pod
passwd - compute password hashes
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
openssl passwd [-crypt] [-1] [-apr1] [-salt string] [-in
file] [-stdin] [-noverify] [-quiet] [-table] {password}
The passwd command computes the hash of a password typed at
run-time or the hash of each password in a list. The pass-
word list is taken from the named file for option -in file,
from stdin for option -stdin, or from the command line, or
from the terminal otherwise. The Unix standard algorithm
crypt and the MD5-based BSD password algorithm 1 and its
Apache variant apr1 are available.
-crypt
Use the crypt algorithm (default).
-1 Use the MD5 based BSD password algorithm 1.
-apr1
Use the apr1 algorithm (Apache variant of the BSD algo-
rithm).
-salt string
Use the specified salt. When reading a password from the
terminal, this implies -noverify.
-in file
Read passwords from file.
-stdin
Read passwords from stdin.
-noverify
Don't verify when reading a password from the terminal.
-quiet
Don't output warnings when passwords given at the com-
mand line are truncated.
-table
In the output list, prepend the cleartext password and a
TAB character to each password hash.
openssl passwd -crypt -salt xx password prints
xxj31ZMTZzkVA.
openssl passwd -1 -salt xxxxxxxx password prints
$1$xxxxxxxx$UYCIxa628.9qXjpQCjM4a..
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
openssl passwd -apr1 -salt xxxxxxxx password prints
$apr1$xxxxxxxx$dxHfLAsjHkDRmG83UXe8K0.
pkcs12 - PKCS#12 file utility
openssl pkcs12 [-export] [-chain] [-inkey filename] [-cert-
file filename] [-name name] [-caname name] [-in filename]
[-out filename] [-noout] [-nomacver] [-nocerts] [-clcerts]
[-cacerts] [-nokeys] [-info] [-des] [-des3] [-nodes]
[-noiter] [-maciter] [-twopass] [-descert] [-certpbe]
[-keypbe] [-keyex] [-keysig] [-password arg] [-passin arg]
[-passout arg] [-rand file(s)]
The pkcs12 command allows PKCS#12 files (sometimes referred
to as PFX files) to be created and parsed. PKCS#12 files are
used by several programs including Netscape, MSIE and MS
Outlook.
There are a lot of options the meaning of some depends of
whether a PKCS#12 file is being created or parsed. By
default a PKCS#12 file is parsed a PKCS#12 file can be
created by using the -export option (see below).
-in filename
This specifies filename of the PKCS#12 file to be
parsed. Standard input is used by default.
-out filename
The filename to write certificates and private keys to,
standard output by default. They are all written in PEM
format.
-pass arg, -passin arg
the PKCS#12 file (i.e. input file) password source. For
more information about the format of arg see the PASS
PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in openssl(1).
-passout arg
pass phrase source to encrypt any outputed private keys
with. For more information about the format of arg see
the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in openssl(1).
-noout
this option inhibits output of the keys and certificates
to the output file version of the PKCS#12 file.
-clcerts
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
only output client certificates (not CA certificates).
-cacerts
only output CA certificates (not client certificates).
-nocerts
no certificates at all will be output.
-nokeys
no private keys will be output.
-info
output additional information about the PKCS#12 file
structure, algorithms used and iteration counts.
-des
use DES to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-des3
use triple DES to encrypt private keys before output-
ting, this is the default.
-nodes
don't encrypt the private keys at all.
-nomacver
don't attempt to verify the integrity MAC before reading
the file.
-twopass
prompt for separate integrity and encryption passwords:
most software always assumes these are the same so this
option will render such PKCS#12 files unreadable.
-export
This option specifies that a PKCS#12 file will be
created rather than parsed.
-out filename
This specifies filename to write the PKCS#12 file to.
Standard output is used by default.
-in filename
The filename to read certificates and private keys from,
standard input by default. They must all be in PEM for-
mat. The order doesn't matter but one private key and
its corresponding certificate should be present. If
additional certificates are present they will also be
included in the PKCS#12 file.
-inkey filename
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
file to read private key from. If not present then a
private key must be present in the input file.
-name friendlyname
This specifies the "friendly name" for the certificate
and private key. This name is typically displayed in
list boxes by software importing the file.
-certfile filename
A filename to read additional certificates from.
-caname friendlyname
This specifies the "friendly name" for other certifi-
cates. This option may be used multiple times to specify
names for all certificates in the order they appear.
Netscape ignores friendly names on other certificates
whereas MSIE displays them.
-pass arg, -passout arg
the PKCS#12 file (i.e. output file) password source. For
more information about the format of arg see the PASS
PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in openssl(1).
-passin password
pass phrase source to decrypt any input private keys
with. For more information about the format of arg see
the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in openssl(1).
-chain
if this option is present then an attempt is made to
include the entire certificate chain of the user certi-
ficate. The standard CA store is used for this search.
If the search fails it is considered a fatal error.
-descert
encrypt the certificate using triple DES, this may
render the PKCS#12 file unreadable by some "export
grade" software. By default the private key is encrypted
using triple DES and the certificate using 40 bit RC2.
-keypbe alg, -certpbe alg
these options allow the algorithm used to encrypt the
private key and certificates to be selected. Although
any PKCS#5 v1.5 or PKCS#12 algorithms can be selected it
is advisable only to use PKCS#12 algorithms. See the
list in the NOTES section for more information.
-keyex|-keysig
specifies that the private key is to be used for key
exchange or just signing. This option is only inter-
preted by MSIE and similar MS software. Normally "export
grade" software will only allow 512 bit RSA keys to be
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 60
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
used for encryption purposes but arbitrary length keys
for signing. The -keysig option marks the key for sign-
ing only. Signing only keys can be used for S/MIME sign-
ing, authenticode (ActiveX control signing) and SSL
client authentication, however due to a bug only MSIE
5.0 and later support the use of signing only keys for
SSL client authentication.
-nomaciter, -noiter
these options affect the iteration counts on the MAC and
key algorithms. Unless you wish to produce files compa-
tible with MSIE 4.0 you should leave these options
alone.
To discourage attacks by using large dictionaries of
common passwords the algorithm that derives keys from
passwords can have an iteration count applied to it:
this causes a certain part of the algorithm to be
repeated and slows it down. The MAC is used to check the
file integrity but since it will normally have the same
password as the keys and certificates it could also be
attacked. By default both MAC and encryption iteration
counts are set to 2048, using these options the MAC and
encryption iteration counts can be set to 1, since this
reduces the file security you should not use these
options unless you really have to. Most software sup-
ports both MAC and key iteration counts. MSIE 4.0
doesn't support MAC iteration counts so it needs the
-nomaciter option.
-maciter
This option is included for compatibility with previous
versions, it used to be needed to use MAC iterations
counts but they are now used by default.
-rand file(s)
a file or files containing random data used to seed the
random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)). Multiple files can be specified separated
by a OS-dependent character. The separator is ; for
MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
Although there are a large number of options most of them
are very rarely used. For PKCS#12 file parsing only -in and
-out need to be used for PKCS#12 file creation -export and
-name are also used.
If none of the -clcerts, -cacerts or -nocerts options are
present then all certificates will be output in the order
they appear in the input PKCS#12 files. There is no guaran-
tee that the first certificate present is the one
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
corresponding to the private key. Certain software which
requires a private key and certificate and assumes the first
certificate in the file is the one corresponding to the
private key: this may not always be the case. Using the
-clcerts option will solve this problem by only outputting
the certificate corresponding to the private key. If the CA
certificates are required then they can be output to a
separate file using the -nokeys -cacerts options to just
output CA certificates.
The -keypbe and -certpbe algorithms allow the precise
encryption algorithms for private keys and certificates to
be specified. Normally the defaults are fine but occasion-
ally software can't handle triple DES encrypted private
keys, then the option -keypbe PBE-SHA1-RC2-40 can be used to
reduce the private key encryption to 40 bit RC2. A complete
description of all algorithms is contained in the pkcs8
manual page.
Parse a PKCS#12 file and output it to a file:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -out file.pem
Output only client certificates to a file:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -clcerts -out file.pem
Don't encrypt the private key:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -out file.pem -nodes
Print some info about a PKCS#12 file:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -info -noout
Create a PKCS#12 file:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in file.pem -out file.p12 -name "My Certificate"
Include some extra certificates:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in file.pem -out file.p12 -name "My Certificate" \
-certfile othercerts.pem
Some would argue that the PKCS#12 standard is one big bug
:-)
Versions of OpenSSL before 0.9.6a had a bug in the PKCS#12
key generation routines. Under rare circumstances this could
produce a PKCS#12 file encrypted with an invalid key. As a
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
result some PKCS#12 files which triggered this bug from
other implementations (MSIE or Netscape) could not be
decrypted by OpenSSL and similarly OpenSSL could produce
PKCS#12 files which could not be decrypted by other imple-
mentations. The chances of producing such a file are rela-
tively small: less than 1 in 256.
A side effect of fixing this bug is that any old invalidly
encrypted PKCS#12 files cannot no longer be parsed by the
fixed version. Under such circumstances the pkcs12 utility
will report that the MAC is OK but fail with a decryption
error when extracting private keys.
This problem can be resolved by extracting the private keys
and certificates from the PKCS#12 file using an older ver-
sion of OpenSSL and recreating the PKCS#12 file from the
keys and certificates using a newer version of OpenSSL. For
example:
old-openssl -in bad.p12 -out keycerts.pem
openssl -in keycerts.pem -export -name "My PKCS#12 file" -out fixed.p12
pkcs8(1)
pkcs7 - PKCS#7 utility
openssl pkcs7 [-inform PEM|DER] [-outform PEM|DER] [-in
filename] [-out filename] [-print_certs] [-text] [-noout]
[-engine id]
The pkcs7 command processes PKCS#7 files in DER or PEM for-
mat.
-inform DER|PEM
This specifies the input format. DER format is DER
encoded PKCS#7 v1.5 structure.PEM (the default) is a
base64 encoded version of the DER form with header and
footer lines.
-outform DER|PEM
This specifies the output format, the options have the
same meaning as the -inform option.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read from or stan-
dard input if this option is not specified.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-out filename
specifies the output filename to write to or standard
output by default.
-print_certs
prints out any certificates or CRLs contained in the
file. They are preceded by their subject and issuer
names in one line format.
-text
prints out certificates details in full rather than just
subject and issuer names.
-noout
don't output the encoded version of the PKCS#7 structure
(or certificates is -print_certs is set).
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
Convert a PKCS#7 file from PEM to DER:
openssl pkcs7 -in file.pem -outform DER -out file.der
Output all certificates in a file:
openssl pkcs7 -in file.pem -print_certs -out certs.pem
The PEM PKCS#7 format uses the header and footer lines:
-----BEGIN PKCS7-----
-----END PKCS7-----
For compatibility with some CAs it will also accept:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
There is no option to print out all the fields of a PKCS#7
file.
This PKCS#7 routines only understand PKCS#7 v 1.5 as speci-
fied in RFC2315 they cannot currently parse, for example,
the new CMS as described in RFC2630.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
crl2pkcs7(1)
pkcs8 - PKCS#8 format private key conversion tool
openssl pkcs8 [-topk8] [-inform PEM|DER] [-outform PEM|DER]
[-in filename] [-passin arg] [-out filename] [-passout arg]
[-noiter] [-nocrypt] [-nooct] [-embed] [-nsdb] [-v2 alg]
[-v1 alg] [-engine id]
The pkcs8 command processes private keys in PKCS#8 format.
It can handle both unencrypted PKCS#8 PrivateKeyInfo format
and EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo format with a variety of PKCS#5
(v1.5 and v2.0) and PKCS#12 algorithms.
-topk8
Normally a PKCS#8 private key is expected on input and a
traditional format private key will be written. With the
-topk8 option the situation is reversed: it reads a
traditional format private key and writes a PKCS#8 for-
mat key.
-inform DER|PEM
This specifies the input format. If a PKCS#8 format key
is expected on input then either a DER or PEM encoded
version of a PKCS#8 key will be expected. Otherwise the
DER or PEM format of the traditional format private key
is used.
-outform DER|PEM
This specifies the output format, the options have the
same meaning as the -inform option.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read a key from or
standard input if this option is not specified. If the
key is encrypted a pass phrase will be prompted for.
-passin arg
the input file password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-out filename
This specifies the output filename to write a key to or
standard output by default. If any encryption options
are set then a pass phrase will be prompted for. The
output filename should not be the same as the input
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
filename.
-passout arg
the output file password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-nocrypt
PKCS#8 keys generated or input are normally PKCS#8
EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo structures using an appropriate
password based encryption algorithm. With this option an
unencrypted PrivateKeyInfo structure is expected or out-
put. This option does not encrypt private keys at all
and should only be used when absolutely necessary. Cer-
tain software such as some versions of Java code signing
software used unencrypted private keys.
-nooct
This option generates RSA private keys in a broken for-
mat that some software uses. Specifically the private
key should be enclosed in a OCTET STRING but some
software just includes the structure itself without the
surrounding OCTET STRING.
-embed
This option generates DSA keys in a broken format. The
DSA parameters are embedded inside the PrivateKey struc-
ture. In this form the OCTET STRING contains an ASN1
SEQUENCE consisting of two structures: a SEQUENCE con-
taining the parameters and an ASN1 INTEGER containing
the private key.
-nsdb
This option generates DSA keys in a broken format compa-
tible with Netscape private key databases. The Private-
Key contains a SEQUENCE consisting of the public and
private keys respectively.
-v2 alg
This option enables the use of PKCS#5 v2.0 algorithms.
Normally PKCS#8 private keys are encrypted with the
password based encryption algorithm called
pbeWithMD5AndDES-CBC this uses 56 bit DES encryption but
it was the strongest encryption algorithm supported in
PKCS#5 v1.5. Using the -v2 option PKCS#5 v2.0 algorithms
are used which can use any encryption algorithm such as
168 bit triple DES or 128 bit RC2 however not many
implementations support PKCS#5 v2.0 yet. If you are just
using private keys with OpenSSL then this doesn't
matter.
The alg argument is the encryption algorithm to use,
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
valid values include des, des3 and rc2. It is recom-
mended that des3 is used.
-v1 alg
This option specifies a PKCS#5 v1.5 or PKCS#12 algorithm
to use. A complete list of possible algorithms is
included below.
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
The encrypted form of a PEM encode PKCS#8 files uses the
following headers and footers:
-----BEGIN ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY-----
-----END ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY-----
The unencrypted form uses:
-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
-----END PRIVATE KEY-----
Private keys encrypted using PKCS#5 v2.0 algorithms and high
iteration counts are more secure that those encrypted using
the traditional SSLeay compatible formats. So if additional
security is considered important the keys should be con-
verted.
The default encryption is only 56 bits because this is the
encryption that most current implementations of PKCS#8 will
support.
Some software may use PKCS#12 password based encryption
algorithms with PKCS#8 format private keys: these are han-
dled automatically but there is no option to produce them.
It is possible to write out DER encoded encrypted private
keys in PKCS#8 format because the encryption details are
included at an ASN1 level whereas the traditional format
includes them at a PEM level.
PKCS#5 v1.5 and PKCS#12 algorithms.
Various algorithms can be used with the -v1 command line
option, including PKCS#5 v1.5 and PKCS#12. These are
described in more detail below.
PBE-MD2-DES PBE-MD5-DES
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These algorithms were included in the original PKCS#5
v1.5 specification. They only offer 56 bits of protec-
tion since they both use DES.
PBE-SHA1-RC2-64 PBE-MD2-RC2-64 PBE-MD5-RC2-64 PBE-SHA1-DES
These algorithms are not mentioned in the original
PKCS#5 v1.5 specification but they use the same key
derivation algorithm and are supported by some software.
They are mentioned in PKCS#5 v2.0. They use either 64
bit RC2 or 56 bit DES.
PBE-SHA1-RC4-128 PBE-SHA1-RC4-40 PBE-SHA1-3DES PBE-SHA1-2DES
PBE-SHA1-RC2-128 PBE-SHA1-RC2-40
These algorithms use the PKCS#12 password based encryp-
tion algorithm and allow strong encryption algorithms
like triple DES or 128 bit RC2 to be used.
Convert a private from traditional to PKCS#5 v2.0 format
using triple DES:
openssl pkcs8 -in key.pem -topk8 -v2 des3 -out enckey.pem
Convert a private key to PKCS#8 using a PKCS#5 1.5 compati-
ble algorithm (DES):
openssl pkcs8 -in key.pem -topk8 -out enckey.pem
Convert a private key to PKCS#8 using a PKCS#12 compatible
algorithm (3DES):
openssl pkcs8 -in key.pem -topk8 -out enckey.pem -v1 PBE-SHA1-3DES
Read a DER unencrypted PKCS#8 format private key:
openssl pkcs8 -inform DER -nocrypt -in key.der -out key.pem
Convert a private key from any PKCS#8 format to traditional
format:
openssl pkcs8 -in pk8.pem -out key.pem
Test vectors from this PKCS#5 v2.0 implementation were
posted to the pkcs-tng mailing list using triple DES, DES
and RC2 with high iteration counts, several people confirmed
that they could decrypt the private keys produced and There-
fore it can be assumed that the PKCS#5 v2.0 implementation
is reasonably accurate at least as far as these algorithms
are concerned.
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The format of PKCS#8 DSA (and other) private keys is not
well documented: it is hidden away in PKCS#11 v2.01, section
11.9. OpenSSL's default DSA PKCS#8 private key format com-
plies with this standard.
There should be an option that prints out the encryption
algorithm in use and other details such as the iteration
count.
PKCS#8 using triple DES and PKCS#5 v2.0 should be the
default private key format for OpenSSL: for compatibility
several of the utilities use the old format at present.
dsa(1), rsa(1), genrsa(1), gendsa(1)
rand - generate pseudo-random bytes
openssl rand [-out file] [-rand file(s)] [-base64] num
The rand command outputs num pseudo-random bytes after seed-
ing the random number generator once. As in other openssl
command line tools, PRNG seeding uses the file $HOME/.rnd or
.rnd in addition to the files given in the -rand option. A
new $HOME/.rnd or .rnd file will be written back if enough
seeding was obtained from these sources.
-out file
Write to file instead of standard output.
-rand file(s)
Use specified file or files or EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)) for seeding the random number generator.
Multiple files can be specified separated by a OS-
dependent character. The separator is ; for MS-Windows,
, for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
-base64
Perform base64 encoding on the output.
RAND_bytes(3)
req - PKCS#10 certificate request and certificate generating
utility.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
openssl req [-inform PEM|DER] [-outform PEM|DER] [-in
filename] [-passin arg] [-out filename] [-passout arg]
[-text] [-pubkey] [-noout] [-verify] [-modulus] [-new]
[-rand file(s)] [-newkey rsa:bits] [-newkey dsa:file]
[-nodes] [-key filename] [-keyform PEM|DER] [-keyout
filename] [-[md5|sha1|md2]] [-config filename] [-subj arg]
[-x509] [-days n] [-set_serial n] [-asn1-kludge] [-newhdr]
[-extensions section] [-reqexts section] [-utf8] [-nameopt]
[-batch] [-verbose] [-engine id]
The req command primarily creates and processes certificate
requests in PKCS#10 format. It can additionally create self
signed certificates for use as root CAs for example.
-inform DER|PEM
This specifies the input format. The DER option uses an
ASN1 DER encoded form compatible with the PKCS#10. The
PEM form is the default format: it consists of the DER
format base64 encoded with additional header and footer
lines.
-outform DER|PEM
This specifies the output format, the options have the
same meaning as the -inform option.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read a request from
or standard input if this option is not specified. A
request is only read if the creation options (-new and
-newkey) are not specified.
-passin arg
the input file password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-out filename
This specifies the output filename to write to or stan-
dard output by default.
-passout arg
the output file password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-text
prints out the certificate request in text form.
-pubkey
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
outputs the public key.
-noout
this option prevents output of the encoded version of
the request.
-modulus
this option prints out the value of the modulus of the
public key contained in the request.
-verify
verifies the signature on the request.
-new
this option generates a new certificate request. It will
prompt the user for the relevant field values. The
actual fields prompted for and their maximum and minimum
sizes are specified in the configuration file and any
requested extensions.
If the -key option is not used it will generate a new
RSA private key using information specified in the con-
figuration file.
-rand file(s)
a file or files containing random data used to seed the
random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)). Multiple files can be specified separated
by a OS-dependent character. The separator is ; for
MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
-newkey arg
this option creates a new certificate request and a new
private key. The argument takes one of two forms.
rsa:nbits, where nbits is the number of bits, generates
an RSA key nbits in size. dsa:filename generates a DSA
key using the parameters in the file filename.
-key filename
This specifies the file to read the private key from. It
also accepts PKCS#8 format private keys for PEM format
files.
-keyform PEM|DER
the format of the private key file specified in the -key
argument. PEM is the default.
-keyout filename
this gives the filename to write the newly created
private key to. If this option is not specified then the
filename present in the configuration file is used.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-nodes
if this option is specified then if a private key is
created it will not be encrypted.
-[md5|sha1|md2]
this specifies the message digest to sign the request
with. This overrides the digest algorithm specified in
the configuration file. This option is ignored for DSA
requests: they always use SHA1.
-config filename
this allows an alternative configuration file to be
specified, this overrides the compile time filename or
any specified in the OPENSSL_CONF environment variable.
-subj arg
sets subject name for new request or supersedes the sub-
ject name when processing a request. The arg must be
formatted as /type0=value0/type1=value1/type2=..., char-
acters may be escaped by \ (backslash), no spaces are
skipped.
-x509
this option outputs a self signed certificate instead of
a certificate request. This is typically used to gen-
erate a test certificate or a self signed root CA. The
extensions added to the certificate (if any) are speci-
fied in the configuration file. Unless specified using
the set_serial option 0 will be used for the serial
number.
-days n
when the -x509 option is being used this specifies the
number of days to certify the certificate for. The
default is 30 days.
-set_serial n
serial number to use when outputting a self signed cer-
tificate. This may be specified as a decimal value or a
hex value if preceded by 0x. It is possible to use nega-
tive serial numbers but this is not recommended.
-extensions section
-reqexts section
these options specify alternative sections to include
certificate extensions (if the -x509 option is present)
or certificate request extensions. This allows several
different sections to be used in the same configuration
file to specify requests for a variety of purposes.
-utf8
this option causes field values to be interpreted as
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
UTF8 strings, by default they are interpreted as ASCII.
This means that the field values, whether prompted from
a terminal or obtained from a configuration file, must
be valid UTF8 strings.
-nameopt option
option which determines how the subject or issuer names
are displayed. The option argument can be a single
option or multiple options separated by commas. Alter-
natively the -nameopt switch may be used more than once
to set multiple options. See the x509(1) manual page for
details.
-asn1-kludge
by default the req command outputs certificate requests
containing no attributes in the correct PKCS#10 format.
However certain CAs will only accept requests containing
no attributes in an invalid form: this option produces
this invalid format.
More precisely the Attributes in a PKCS#10 certificate
request are defined as a SET OF Attribute. They are not
OPTIONAL so if no attributes are present then they
should be encoded as an empty SET OF. The invalid form
does not include the empty SET OF whereas the correct
form does.
It should be noted that very few CAs still require the
use of this option.
-newhdr
Adds the word NEW to the PEM file header and footer
lines on the outputed request. Some software (Netscape
certificate server) and some CAs need this.
-batch
non-interactive mode.
-verbose
print extra details about the operations being per-
formed.
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
The configuration options are specified in the req section
of the configuration file. As with all configuration files
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
if no value is specified in the specific section (i.e. req)
then the initial unnamed or default section is searched too.
The options available are described in detail below.
input_password output_password
The passwords for the input private key file (if
present) and the output private key file (if one will be
created). The command line options passin and passout
override the configuration file values.
default_bits
This specifies the default key size in bits. If not
specified then 512 is used. It is used if the -new
option is used. It can be overridden by using the -new-
key option.
default_keyfile
This is the default filename to write a private key to.
If not specified the key is written to standard output.
This can be overridden by the -keyout option.
oid_file
This specifies a file containing additional OBJECT IDEN-
TIFIERS. Each line of the file should consist of the
numerical form of the object identifier followed by
white space then the short name followed by white space
and finally the long name.
oid_section
This specifies a section in the configuration file con-
taining extra object identifiers. Each line should con-
sist of the short name of the object identifier followed
by = and the numerical form. The short and long names
are the same when this option is used.
RANDFILE
This specifies a filename in which random number seed
information is placed and read from, or an EGD socket
(see RAND_egd(3)). It is used for private key genera-
tion.
encrypt_key
If this is set to no then if a private key is generated
it is not encrypted. This is equivalent to the -nodes
command line option. For compatibility encrypt_rsa_key
is an equivalent option.
default_md
This option specifies the digest algorithm to use. Pos-
sible values include md5 sha1. If not present then MD5
is used. This option can be overridden on the command
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
line.
string_mask
This option masks out the use of certain string types in
certain fields. Most users will not need to change this
option.
It can be set to several values default which is also
the default option uses PrintableStrings, T61Strings and
BMPStrings if the pkix value is used then only Print-
ableStrings and BMPStrings will be used. This follows
the PKIX recommendation in RFC2459. If the utf8only
option is used then only UTF8Strings will be used: this
is the PKIX recommendation in RFC2459 after 2003.
Finally the nombstr option just uses PrintableStrings
and T61Strings: certain software has problems with
BMPStrings and UTF8Strings: in particular Netscape.
req_extensions
this specifies the configuration file section containing
a list of extensions to add to the certificate request.
It can be overridden by the -reqexts command line
switch.
x509_extensions
this specifies the configuration file section containing
a list of extensions to add to certificate generated
when the -x509 switch is used. It can be overridden by
the -extensions command line switch.
prompt
if set to the value no this disables prompting of certi-
ficate fields and just takes values from the config file
directly. It also changes the expected format of the
distinguished_name and attributes sections.
utf8
if set to the value yes then field values to be inter-
preted as UTF8 strings, by default they are interpreted
as ASCII. This means that the field values, whether
prompted from a terminal or obtained from a configura-
tion file, must be valid UTF8 strings.
attributes
this specifies the section containing any request attri-
butes: its format is the same as distinguished_name.
Typically these may contain the challengePassword or
unstructuredName types. They are currently ignored by
OpenSSL's request signing utilities but some CAs might
want them.
distinguished_name
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
This specifies the section containing the distinguished
name fields to prompt for when generating a certificate
or certificate request. The format is described in the
next section.
There are two separate formats for the distinguished name
and attribute sections. If the prompt option is set to no
then these sections just consist of field names and values:
for example,
CN=My Name
OU=My Organization
emailAddress=someone@somewhere.org
This allows external programs (e.g. GUI based) to generate a
template file with all the field names and values and just
pass it to req. An example of this kind of configuration
file is contained in the EXAMPLES section.
Alternatively if the prompt option is absent or not set to
no then the file contains field prompting information. It
consists of lines of the form:
fieldName="prompt"
fieldName_default="default field value"
fieldName_min= 2
fieldName_max= 4
"fieldName" is the field name being used, for example com-
monName (or CN). The "prompt" string is used to ask the user
to enter the relevant details. If the user enters nothing
then the default value is used if no default value is
present then the field is omitted. A field can still be
omitted if a default value is present if the user just
enters the '.' character.
The number of characters entered must be between the
fieldName_min and fieldName_max limits: there may be addi-
tional restrictions based on the field being used (for exam-
ple countryName can only ever be two characters long and
must fit in a PrintableString).
Some fields (such as organizationName) can be used more than
once in a DN. This presents a problem because configuration
files will not recognize the same name occurring twice. To
avoid this problem if the fieldName contains some characters
followed by a full stop they will be ignored. So for example
a second organizationName can be input by calling it
"1.organizationName".
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The actual permitted field names are any object identifier
short or long names. These are compiled into OpenSSL and
include the usual values such as commonName, countryName,
localityName, organizationName, organizationUnitName, sta-
teOrProvinceName. Additionally emailAddress is include as
well as name, surname, givenName initials and dnQualifier.
Additional object identifiers can be defined with the
oid_file or oid_section options in the configuration file.
Any additional fields will be treated as though they were a
DirectoryString.
Examine and verify certificate request:
openssl req -in req.pem -text -verify -noout
Create a private key and then generate a certificate request
from it:
openssl genrsa -out key.pem 1024
openssl req -new -key key.pem -out req.pem
The same but just using req:
openssl req -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout key.pem -out req.pem
Generate a self signed root certificate:
openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout key.pem -out req.pem
Example of a file pointed to by the oid_file option:
1.2.3.4 shortName A longer Name
1.2.3.6 otherName Other longer Name
Example of a section pointed to by oid_section making use of
variable expansion:
testoid1=1.2.3.5
testoid2=${testoid1}.6
Sample configuration file prompting for field values:
[ req ]
default_bits = 1024
default_keyfile = privkey.pem
distinguished_name = req_distinguished_name
attributes = req_attributes
x509_extensions = v3_ca
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
dirstring_type = nobmp
[ req_distinguished_name ]
countryName = Country Name (2 letter code)
countryName_default = AU
countryName_min = 2
countryName_max = 2
localityName = Locality Name (eg, city)
organizationalUnitName = Organizational Unit Name (eg, section)
commonName = Common Name (eg, YOUR name)
commonName_max = 64
emailAddress = Email Address
emailAddress_max = 40
[ req_attributes ]
challengePassword = A challenge password
challengePassword_min = 4
challengePassword_max = 20
[ v3_ca ]
subjectKeyIdentifier=hash
authorityKeyIdentifier=keyid:always,issuer:always
basicConstraints = CA:true
Sample configuration containing all field values:
RANDFILE = $ENV::HOME/.rnd
[ req ]
default_bits = 1024
default_keyfile = keyfile.pem
distinguished_name = req_distinguished_name
attributes = req_attributes
prompt = no
output_password = mypass
[ req_distinguished_name ]
C = GB
ST = Test State or Province
L = Test Locality
O = Organization Name
OU = Organizational Unit Name
CN = Common Name
emailAddress = test@email.address
[ req_attributes ]
challengePassword = A challenge password
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
The header and footer lines in the PEM format are normally:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
-----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
some software (some versions of Netscape certificate server)
instead needs:
-----BEGIN NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
-----END NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
which is produced with the -newhdr option but is otherwise
compatible. Either form is accepted transparently on input.
The certificate requests generated by Xenroll with MSIE have
extensions added. It includes the keyUsage extension which
determines the type of key (signature only or general pur-
pose) and any additional OIDs entered by the script in an
extendedKeyUsage extension.
The following messages are frequently asked about:
Using configuration from /some/path/openssl.cnf
Unable to load config info
This is followed some time later by...
unable to find 'distinguished_name' in config
problems making Certificate Request
The first error message is the clue: it can't find the con-
figuration file! Certain operations (like examining a certi-
ficate request) don't need a configuration file so its use
isn't enforced. Generation of certificates or requests how-
ever does need a configuration file. This could be regarded
as a bug.
Another puzzling message is this:
Attributes:
a0:00
this is displayed when no attributes are present and the
request includes the correct empty SET OF structure (the DER
encoding of which is 0xa0 0x00). If you just see:
Attributes:
then the SET OF is missing and the encoding is technically
invalid (but it is tolerated). See the description of the
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
command line option -asn1-kludge for more information.
The variable OPENSSL_CONF if defined allows an alternative
configuration file location to be specified, it will be
overridden by the -config command line switch if it is
present. For compatibility reasons the SSLEAY_CONF environ-
ment variable serves the same purpose but its use is
discouraged.
OpenSSL's handling of T61Strings (aka TeletexStrings) is
broken: it effectively treats them as ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1),
Netscape and MSIE have similar behaviour. This can cause
problems if you need characters that aren't available in
PrintableStrings and you don't want to or can't use
BMPStrings.
As a consequence of the T61String handling the only correct
way to represent accented characters in OpenSSL is to use a
BMPString: unfortunately Netscape currently chokes on these.
If you have to use accented characters with Netscape and
MSIE then you currently need to use the invalid T61String
form.
The current prompting is not very friendly. It doesn't allow
you to confirm what you've just entered. Other things like
extensions in certificate requests are statically defined in
the configuration file. Some of these: like an email address
in subjectAltName should be input by the user.
x509(1), ca(1), genrsa(1), gendsa(1), config(5)
rsa - RSA key processing tool
openssl rsa [-inform PEM|NET|DER] [-outform PEM|NET|DER]
[-in filename] [-passin arg] [-out filename] [-passout arg]
[-sgckey] [-des] [-des3] [-text] [-noout] [-modulus]
[-check] [-pubin] [-pubout] [-engine id]
The rsa command processes RSA keys. They can be converted
between various forms and their components printed out. Note
this command uses the traditional SSLeay compatible format
for private key encryption: newer applications should use
the more secure PKCS#8 format using the pkcs8 utility.
-inform DER|NET|PEM
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
This specifies the input format. The DER option uses an
ASN1 DER encoded form compatible with the PKCS#1
RSAPrivateKey or SubjectPublicKeyInfo format. The PEM
form is the default format: it consists of the DER for-
mat base64 encoded with additional header and footer
lines. On input PKCS#8 format private keys are also
accepted. The NET form is a format is described in the
NOTES section.
-outform DER|NET|PEM
This specifies the output format, the options have the
same meaning as the -inform option.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read a key from or
standard input if this option is not specified. If the
key is encrypted a pass phrase will be prompted for.
-passin arg
the input file password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-out filename
This specifies the output filename to write a key to or
standard output if this option is not specified. If any
encryption options are set then a pass phrase will be
prompted for. The output filename should not be the same
as the input filename.
-passout password
the output file password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-sgckey
use the modified NET algorithm used with some versions
of Microsoft IIS and SGC keys.
-des|-des3
These options encrypt the private key with the DES or
triple DES ciphers respectively before outputting it. A
pass phrase is prompted for. If none of these options is
specified the key is written in plain text. This means
that using the rsa utility to read in an encrypted key
with no encryption option can be used to remove the pass
phrase from a key, or by setting the encryption options
it can be use to add or change the pass phrase. These
options can only be used with PEM format output files.
-text
prints out the various public or private key components
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 81
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
in plain text in addition to the encoded version.
-noout
this option prevents output of the encoded version of
the key.
-modulus
this option prints out the value of the modulus of the
key.
-check
this option checks the consistency of an RSA private
key.
-pubin
by default a private key is read from the input file:
with this option a public key is read instead.
-pubout
by default a private key is output: with this option a
public key will be output instead. This option is
automatically set if the input is a public key.
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
The PEM private key format uses the header and footer lines:
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
The PEM public key format uses the header and footer lines:
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
The NET form is a format compatible with older Netscape
servers and Microsoft IIS .key files, this uses unsalted RC4
for its encryption. It is not very secure and so should only
be used when necessary.
Some newer version of IIS have additional data in the
exported .key files. To use these with the utility, view the
file with a binary editor and look for the string
"private-key", then trace back to the byte sequence 0x30,
0x82 (this is an ASN1 SEQUENCE). Copy all the data from this
point onwards to another file and use that as the input to
MirBSD #10-current 2022-12-23 82
OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
the rsa utility with the -inform NET option. If you get an
error after entering the password try the -sgckey option.
To remove the pass phrase on an RSA private key:
openssl rsa -in key.pem -out keyout.pem
To encrypt a private key using triple DES:
openssl rsa -in key.pem -des3 -out keyout.pem
To convert a private key from PEM to DER format:
openssl rsa -in key.pem -outform DER -out keyout.der
To print out the components of a private key to standard
output:
openssl rsa -in key.pem -text -noout
To just output the public part of a private key:
openssl rsa -in key.pem -pubout -out pubkey.pem
The command line password arguments don't currently work
with NET format.
There should be an option that automatically handles .key
files, without having to manually edit them.
pkcs8(1), dsa(1), genrsa(1), gendsa(1)
rsautl - RSA utility
openssl rsautl [-in file] [-out file] [-inkey file] [-pubin]
[-certin] [-sign] [-verify] [-encrypt] [-decrypt] [-pkcs]
[-ssl] [-raw] [-hexdump] [-asn1parse]
The rsautl command can be used to sign, verify, encrypt and
decrypt data using the RSA algorithm.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read data from or
standard input if this option is not specified.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-out filename
specifies the output filename to write to or standard
output by default.
-inkey file
the input key file, by default it should be an RSA
private key.
-pubin
the input file is an RSA public key.
-certin
the input is a certificate containing an RSA public key.
-sign
sign the input data and output the signed result. This
requires and RSA private key.
-verify
verify the input data and output the recovered data.
-encrypt
encrypt the input data using an RSA public key.
-decrypt
decrypt the input data using an RSA private key.
-pkcs, -oaep, -ssl, -raw
the padding to use: PKCS#1 v1.5 (the default), PKCS#1
OAEP, special padding used in SSL v2 backwards compati-
ble handshakes, or no padding, respectively. For signa-
tures, only -pkcs and -raw can be used.
-hexdump
hex dump the output data.
-asn1parse
asn1parse the output data, this is useful when combined
with the -verify option.
rsautl because it uses the RSA algorithm directly can only
be used to sign or verify small pieces of data.
Sign some data using a private key:
openssl rsautl -sign -in file -inkey key.pem -out sig
Recover the signed data
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
openssl rsautl -verify -in sig -inkey key.pem
Examine the raw signed data:
openssl rsautl -verify -in file -inkey key.pem -raw -hexdump
0000 - 00 01 ff ff ff ff ff ff-ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
0010 - ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff-ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
0020 - ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff-ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
0030 - ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff-ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
0040 - ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff-ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
0050 - ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff-ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
0060 - ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff-ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ................
0070 - ff ff ff ff 00 68 65 6c-6c 6f 20 77 6f 72 6c 64 .....hello world
The PKCS#1 block formatting is evident from this. If this
was done using encrypt and decrypt the block would have been
of type 2 (the second byte) and random padding data visible
instead of the 0xff bytes.
It is possible to analyse the signature of certificates
using this utility in conjunction with asn1parse. Consider
the self signed example in certs/pca-cert.pem . Running
asn1parse as follows yields:
openssl asn1parse -in pca-cert.pem
0:d=0 hl=4 l= 742 cons: SEQUENCE
4:d=1 hl=4 l= 591 cons: SEQUENCE
8:d=2 hl=2 l= 3 cons: cont [ 0 ]
10:d=3 hl=2 l= 1 prim: INTEGER :02
13:d=2 hl=2 l= 1 prim: INTEGER :00
16:d=2 hl=2 l= 13 cons: SEQUENCE
18:d=3 hl=2 l= 9 prim: OBJECT :md5WithRSAEncryption
29:d=3 hl=2 l= 0 prim: NULL
31:d=2 hl=2 l= 92 cons: SEQUENCE
33:d=3 hl=2 l= 11 cons: SET
35:d=4 hl=2 l= 9 cons: SEQUENCE
37:d=5 hl=2 l= 3 prim: OBJECT :countryName
42:d=5 hl=2 l= 2 prim: PRINTABLESTRING :AU
....
599:d=1 hl=2 l= 13 cons: SEQUENCE
601:d=2 hl=2 l= 9 prim: OBJECT :md5WithRSAEncryption
612:d=2 hl=2 l= 0 prim: NULL
614:d=1 hl=3 l= 129 prim: BIT STRING
The final BIT STRING contains the actual signature. It can
be extracted with:
openssl asn1parse -in pca-cert.pem -out sig -noout -strparse 614
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
The certificate public key can be extracted with:
openssl x509 -in test/testx509.pem -pubout -noout >pubkey.pem
The signature can be analysed with:
openssl rsautl -in sig -verify -asn1parse -inkey pubkey.pem -pubin
0:d=0 hl=2 l= 32 cons: SEQUENCE
2:d=1 hl=2 l= 12 cons: SEQUENCE
4:d=2 hl=2 l= 8 prim: OBJECT :md5
14:d=2 hl=2 l= 0 prim: NULL
16:d=1 hl=2 l= 16 prim: OCTET STRING
0000 - f3 46 9e aa 1a 4a 73 c9-37 ea 93 00 48 25 08 b5 .F...Js.7...H%..
This is the parsed version of an ASN1 DigestInfo structure.
It can be seen that the digest used was md5. The actual part
of the certificate that was signed can be extracted with:
openssl asn1parse -in pca-cert.pem -out tbs -noout -strparse 4
and its digest computed with:
openssl md5 -c tbs
MD5(tbs)= f3:46:9e:aa:1a:4a:73:c9:37:ea:93:00:48:25:08:b5
which it can be seen agrees with the recovered value above.
dgst(1), rsa(1), genrsa(1)
s_client - SSL/TLS client program
openssl s_client [-connect host:port] [-verify depth] [-cert
filename] [-key filename] [-CApath directory] [-CAfile
filename] [-reconnect] [-pause] [-showcerts] [-debug] [-msg]
[-nbio_test] [-state] [-nbio] [-crlf] [-ign_eof] [-quiet]
[-ssl2] [-ssl3] [-tls1] [-no_ssl2] [-no_ssl3] [-no_tls1]
[-bugs] [-cipher cipherlist] [-starttls protocol] [-engine
id] [-rand file(s)]
The s_client command implements a generic SSL/TLS client
which connects to a remote host using SSL/TLS. It is a very
useful diagnostic tool for SSL servers.
-connect host:port
This specifies the host and optional port to connect to.
If not specified then an attempt is made to connect to
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
the local host on port 4433.
-cert certname
The certificate to use, if one is requested by the
server. The default is not to use a certificate.
-key keyfile
The private key to use. If not specified then the certi-
ficate file will be used.
-verify depth
The verify depth to use. This specifies the maximum
length of the server certificate chain and turns on
server certificate verification. Currently the verify
operation continues after errors so all the problems
with a certificate chain can be seen. As a side effect
the connection will never fail due to a server certifi-
cate verify failure.
-CApath directory
The directory to use for server certificate verifica-
tion. This directory must be in "hash format", see ver-
ify for more information. These are also used when
building the client certificate chain.
-CAfile file
A file containing trusted certificates to use during
server authentication and to use when attempting to
build the client certificate chain.
-reconnect
reconnects to the same server 5 times using the same
session ID, this can be used as a test that session
caching is working.
-pause
pauses 1 second between each read and write call.
-showcerts
display the whole server certificate chain: normally
only the server certificate itself is displayed.
-prexit
print session information when the program exits. This
will always attempt to print out information even if the
connection fails. Normally information will only be
printed out once if the connection succeeds. This option
is useful because the cipher in use may be renegotiated
or the connection may fail because a client certificate
is required or is requested only after an attempt is
made to access a certain URL. Note: the output produced
by this option is not always accurate because a
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
connection might never have been established.
-state
prints out the SSL session states.
-debug
print extensive debugging information including a hex
dump of all traffic.
-msg
show all protocol messages with hex dump.
-nbio_test
tests non-blocking I/O
-nbio
turns on non-blocking I/O
-crlf
this option translated a line feed from the terminal
into CR+LF as required by some servers.
-ign_eof
inhibit shutting down the connection when end of file is
reached in the input.
-quiet
inhibit printing of session and certificate information.
This implicitly turns on -ign_eof as well.
-ssl2, -ssl3, -tls1, -no_ssl2, -no_ssl3, -no_tls1
these options disable the use of certain SSL or TLS pro-
tocols. By default the initial handshake uses a method
which should be compatible with all servers and permit
them to use SSL v3, SSL v2 or TLS as appropriate.
Unfortunately there are a lot of ancient and broken
servers in use which cannot handle this technique and
will fail to connect. Some servers only work if TLS is
turned off with the -no_tls option others will only sup-
port SSL v2 and may need the -ssl2 option.
-bugs
there are several known bug in SSL and TLS implementa-
tions. Adding this option enables various workarounds.
-cipher cipherlist
this allows the cipher list sent by the client to be
modified. Although the server determines which cipher
suite is used it should take the first supported cipher
in the list sent by the client. See the ciphers command
for more information.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-starttls protocol
send the protocol-specific message(s) to switch to TLS
for communication. protocol is a keyword for the
intended protocol. Currently, the only supported key-
words are "simple", "jabber", "esmtp", "smtp" and
"pop3". The "esmtp" protocol sends out a "EHLO openssl"
SMTP command before issuing the "STARTTLS" command.
(Nowadays, "smtp" does so, too.)
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause s_client to attempt to obtain a functional refer-
ence to the specified engine, thus initialising it if
needed. The engine will then be set as the default for
all available algorithms.
-rand file(s)
a file or files containing random data used to seed the
random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)). Multiple files can be specified separated
by a OS-dependent character. The separator is ; for
MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
If a connection is established with an SSL server then any
data received from the server is displayed and any key
presses will be sent to the server. When used interactively
(which means neither -quiet nor -ign_eof have been given),
the session will be renegotiated if the line begins with an
R, and if the line begins with a Q or if end of file is
reached, the connection will be closed down.
s_client can be used to debug SSL servers. To connect to an
SSL HTTP server the command:
openssl s_client -connect servername:443
would typically be used (https uses port 443). If the con-
nection succeeds then an HTTP command can be given such as
"GET /" to retrieve a web page.
If the handshake fails then there are several possible
causes, if it is nothing obvious like no client certificate
then the -bugs, -ssl2, -ssl3, -tls1, -no_ssl2, -no_ssl3,
-no_tls1 options can be tried in case it is a buggy server.
In particular you should play with these options before sub-
mitting a bug report to an OpenSSL mailing list.
A frequent problem when attempting to get client certifi-
cates working is that a web client complains it has no cer-
tificates or gives an empty list to choose from. This is
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
normally because the server is not sending the clients cer-
tificate authority in its "acceptable CA list" when it
requests a certificate. By using s_client the CA list can be
viewed and checked. However some servers only request client
authentication after a specific URL is requested. To obtain
the list in this case it is necessary to use the -prexit
option and send an HTTP request for an appropriate page.
If a certificate is specified on the command line using the
-cert option it will not be used unless the server specifi-
cally requests a client certificate. Therefor merely includ-
ing a client certificate on the command line is no guarantee
that the certificate works.
If there are problems verifying a server certificate then
the -showcerts option can be used to show the whole chain.
Because this program has a lot of options and also because
some of the techniques used are rather old, the C source of
s_client is rather hard to read and not a model of how
things should be done. A typical SSL client program would be
much simpler.
The -verify option should really exit if the server verifi-
cation fails.
The -prexit option is a bit of a hack. We should really
report information whenever a session is renegotiated.
sess_id(1), s_server(1), ciphers(1)
s_server - SSL/TLS server program
openssl s_server [-accept port] [-context id] [-verify
depth] [-Verify depth] [-cert filename] [-key keyfile]
[-dcert filename] [-dkey keyfile] [-dhparam filename]
[-nbio] [-nbio_test] [-crlf] [-debug] [-msg] [-state]
[-CApath directory] [-CAfile filename] [-nocert] [-cipher
cipherlist] [-quiet] [-no_tmp_rsa] [-ssl2] [-ssl3] [-tls1]
[-no_ssl2] [-no_ssl3] [-no_tls1] [-no_dhe] [-bugs] [-hack]
[-www] [-WWW] [-HTTP] [-engine id] [-id_prefix arg] [-rand
file(s)]
The s_server command implements a generic SSL/TLS server
which listens for connections on a given port using SSL/TLS.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-accept port
the TCP port to listen on for connections. If not speci-
fied 4433 is used.
-context id
sets the SSL context id. It can be given any string
value. If this option is not present a default value
will be used.
-cert certname
The certificate to use, most servers cipher suites
require the use of a certificate and some require a cer-
tificate with a certain public key type: for example the
DSS cipher suites require a certificate containing a DSS
(DSA) key. If not specified then the filename
"server.pem" will be used.
-key keyfile
The private key to use. If not specified then the certi-
ficate file will be used.
-dcert filename, -dkey keyname
specify an additional certificate and private key, these
behave in the same manner as the -cert and -key options
except there is no default if they are not specified (no
additional certificate and key is used). As noted above
some cipher suites require a certificate containing a
key of a certain type. Some cipher suites need a certi-
ficate carrying an RSA key and some a DSS (DSA) key. By
using RSA and DSS certificates and keys a server can
support clients which only support RSA or DSS cipher
suites by using an appropriate certificate.
-nocert
if this option is set then no certificate is used. This
restricts the cipher suites available to the anonymous
ones (currently just anonymous DH).
-dhparam filename
the DH parameter file to use. The ephemeral DH cipher
suites generate keys using a set of DH parameters. If
not specified then an attempt is made to load the param-
eters from the server certificate file. If this fails
then a static set of parameters hard coded into the
s_server program will be used.
-no_dhe
if this option is set then no DH parameters will be
loaded effectively disabling the ephemeral DH cipher
suites.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-no_tmp_rsa
certain export cipher suites sometimes use a temporary
RSA key, this option disables temporary RSA key genera-
tion.
-verify depth, -Verify depth
The verify depth to use. This specifies the maximum
length of the client certificate chain and makes the
server request a certificate from the client. With the
-verify option a certificate is requested but the client
does not have to send one, with the -Verify option the
client must supply a certificate or an error occurs.
-CApath directory
The directory to use for client certificate verifica-
tion. This directory must be in "hash format", see ver-
ify for more information. These are also used when
building the server certificate chain.
-CAfile file
A file containing trusted certificates to use during
client authentication and to use when attempting to
build the server certificate chain. The list is also
used in the list of acceptable client CAs passed to the
client when a certificate is requested.
-state
prints out the SSL session states.
-debug
print extensive debugging information including a hex
dump of all traffic.
-msg
show all protocol messages with hex dump.
-nbio_test
tests non blocking I/O
-nbio
turns on non blocking I/O
-crlf
this option translated a line feed from the terminal
into CR+LF.
-quiet
inhibit printing of session and certificate information.
-ssl2, -ssl3, -tls1, -no_ssl2, -no_ssl3, -no_tls1
these options disable the use of certain SSL or TLS pro-
tocols. By default the initial handshake uses a method
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
which should be compatible with all servers and permit
them to use SSL v3, SSL v2 or TLS as appropriate.
-bugs
there are several known bug in SSL and TLS implementa-
tions. Adding this option enables various workarounds.
-hack
this option enables a further workaround for some some
early Netscape SSL code (?).
-cipher cipherlist
this allows the cipher list used by the server to be
modified. When the client sends a list of supported
ciphers the first client cipher also included in the
server list is used. Because the client specifies the
preference order, the order of the server cipherlist
irrelevant. See the ciphers command for more informa-
tion.
-www
sends a status message back to the client when it con-
nects. This includes lots of information about the
ciphers used and various session parameters. The output
is in HTML format so this option will normally be used
with a web browser.
-WWW
emulates a simple web server. Pages will be resolved
relative to the current directory, for example if the
URL https://myhost/page.html is requested the file
./page.html will be loaded.
-HTTP
emulates a simple web server. Pages will be resolved
relative to the current directory, for example if the
URL https://myhost/page.html is requested the file
./page.html will be loaded. The files loaded are assumed
to contain a complete and correct HTTP response (lines
that are part of the HTTP response line and headers must
end with CRLF).
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause s_server to attempt to obtain a functional refer-
ence to the specified engine, thus initialising it if
needed. The engine will then be set as the default for
all available algorithms.
-id_prefix arg
generate SSL/TLS session IDs prefixed by arg. This is
mostly useful for testing any SSL/TLS code (eg. proxies)
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
that wish to deal with multiple servers, when each of
which might be generating a unique range of session IDs
(eg. with a certain prefix).
-rand file(s)
a file or files containing random data used to seed the
random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)). Multiple files can be specified separated
by a OS-dependent character. The separator is ; for
MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
If a connection request is established with an SSL client
and neither the -www nor the -WWW option has been used then
normally any data received from the client is displayed and
any key presses will be sent to the client.
Certain single letter commands are also recognized which
perform special operations: these are listed below.
q end the current SSL connection but still accept new con-
nections.
Q end the current SSL connection and exit.
r renegotiate the SSL session.
R renegotiate the SSL session and request a client certi-
ficate.
P send some plain text down the underlying TCP connection:
this should cause the client to disconnect due to a pro-
tocol violation.
S print out some session cache status information.
s_server can be used to debug SSL clients. To accept connec-
tions from a web browser the command:
openssl s_server -accept 443 -www
can be used for example.
Most web browsers (in particular Netscape and MSIE) only
support RSA cipher suites, so they cannot connect to servers
which don't use a certificate carrying an RSA key or a ver-
sion of OpenSSL with RSA disabled.
Although specifying an empty list of CAs when requesting a
client certificate is strictly speaking a protocol viola-
tion, some SSL clients interpret this to mean any CA is
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
acceptable. This is useful for debugging purposes.
The session parameters can printed out using the sess_id
program.
Because this program has a lot of options and also because
some of the techniques used are rather old, the C source of
s_server is rather hard to read and not a model of how
things should be done. A typical SSL server program would be
much simpler.
The output of common ciphers is wrong: it just gives the
list of ciphers that OpenSSL recognizes and the client sup-
ports.
There should be a way for the s_server program to print out
details of any unknown cipher suites a client says it sup-
ports.
sess_id(1), s_client(1), ciphers(1)
s_time - SSL/TLS performance timing program
openssl s_time [-connect host:port] [-www page] [-cert
filename] [-key filename] [-CApath directory] [-CAfile
filename] [-reuse] [-new] [-verify depth] [-nbio] [-time
seconds] [-ssl2] [-ssl3] [-bugs] [-cipher cipherlist]
The s_client command implements a generic SSL/TLS client
which connects to a remote host using SSL/TLS. It can
request a page from the server and includes the time to
transfer the payload data in its timing measurements. It
measures the number of connections within a given timeframe,
the amount of data transferred (if any), and calculates the
average time spent for one connection.
-connect host:port
This specifies the host and optional port to connect to.
-www page
This specifies the page to GET from the server. A value
of '/' gets the index.htm[l] page. If this parameter is
not specified, then s_time will only perform the
handshake to establish SSL connections but not transfer
any payload data.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-cert certname
The certificate to use, if one is requested by the
server. The default is not to use a certificate. The
file is in PEM format.
-key keyfile
The private key to use. If not specified then the certi-
ficate file will be used. The file is in PEM format.
-verify depth
The verify depth to use. This specifies the maximum
length of the server certificate chain and turns on
server certificate verification. Currently the verify
operation continues after errors so all the problems
with a certificate chain can be seen. As a side effect
the connection will never fail due to a server certifi-
cate verify failure.
-CApath directory
The directory to use for server certificate verifica-
tion. This directory must be in "hash format", see ver-
ify for more information. These are also used when
building the client certificate chain.
-CAfile file
A file containing trusted certificates to use during
server authentication and to use when attempting to
build the client certificate chain.
-new
performs the timing test using a new session ID for each
connection. If neither -new nor -reuse are specified,
they are both on by default and executed in sequence.
-reuse
performs the timing test using the same session ID; this
can be used as a test that session caching is working.
If neither -new nor -reuse are specified, they are both
on by default and executed in sequence.
-nbio
turns on non-blocking I/O.
-ssl2, -ssl3
these options disable the use of certain SSL or TLS pro-
tocols. By default the initial handshake uses a method
which should be compatible with all servers and permit
them to use SSL v3, SSL v2 or TLS as appropriate. The
timing program is not as rich in options to turn proto-
cols on and off as the s_client(1) program and may not
connect to all servers.
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Unfortunately there are a lot of ancient and broken
servers in use which cannot handle this technique and
will fail to connect. Some servers only work if TLS is
turned off with the -ssl3 option; others will only sup-
port SSL v2 and may need the -ssl2 option.
-bugs
there are several known bug in SSL and TLS implementa-
tions. Adding this option enables various workarounds.
-cipher cipherlist
this allows the cipher list sent by the client to be
modified. Although the server determines which cipher
suite is used it should take the first supported cipher
in the list sent by the client. See the ciphers(1) com-
mand for more information.
-time length
specifies how long (in seconds) s_time should establish
connections and optionally transfer payload data from a
server. Server and client performance and the link speed
determine how many connections s_time can establish.
s_client can be used to measure the performance of an SSL
connection. To connect to an SSL HTTP server and get the
default page the command
openssl s_time -connect servername:443 -www / -CApath yourdir -CAfile yourfile.pem -cipher commoncipher [-ssl3]
would typically be used (https uses port 443). 'commonci-
pher' is a cipher to which both client and server can agree,
see the ciphers(1) command for details.
If the handshake fails then there are several possible
causes, if it is nothing obvious like no client certificate
then the -bugs, -ssl2, -ssl3 options can be tried in case it
is a buggy server. In particular you should play with these
options before submitting a bug report to an OpenSSL mailing
list.
A frequent problem when attempting to get client certifi-
cates working is that a web client complains it has no cer-
tificates or gives an empty list to choose from. This is
normally because the server is not sending the clients cer-
tificate authority in its "acceptable CA list" when it
requests a certificate. By using s_client(1) the CA list can
be viewed and checked. However some servers only request
client authentication after a specific URL is requested. To
obtain the list in this case it is necessary to use the
-prexit option of s_client(1) and send an HTTP request for
an appropriate page.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
If a certificate is specified on the command line using the
-cert option it will not be used unless the server specifi-
cally requests a client certificate. Therefor merely includ-
ing a client certificate on the command line is no guarantee
that the certificate works.
Because this program does not have all the options of the
s_client(1) program to turn protocols on and off, you may
not be able to measure the performance of all protocols with
all servers.
The -verify option should really exit if the server verifi-
cation fails.
s_client(1), s_server(1), ciphers(1)
sess_id - SSL/TLS session handling utility
openssl sess_id [-inform PEM|DER] [-outform PEM|DER] [-in
filename] [-out filename] [-text] [-noout] [-context ID]
The sess_id process the encoded version of the SSL session
structure and optionally prints out SSL session details (for
example the SSL session master key) in human readable for-
mat. Since this is a diagnostic tool that needs some
knowledge of the SSL protocol to use properly, most users
will not need to use it.
-inform DER|PEM
This specifies the input format. The DER option uses an
ASN1 DER encoded format containing session details. The
precise format can vary from one version to the next.
The PEM form is the default format: it consists of the
DER format base64 encoded with additional header and
footer lines.
-outform DER|PEM
This specifies the output format, the options have the
same meaning as the -inform option.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read session infor-
mation from or standard input by default.
-out filename
This specifies the output filename to write session
information to or standard output if this option is not
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
specified.
-text
prints out the various public or private key components
in plain text in addition to the encoded version.
-cert
if a certificate is present in the session it will be
output using this option, if the -text option is also
present then it will be printed out in text form.
-noout
this option prevents output of the encoded version of
the session.
-context ID
this option can set the session id so the output session
information uses the supplied ID. The ID can be any
string of characters. This option wont normally be used.
Typical output:
SSL-Session:
Protocol : TLSv1
Cipher : 0016
Session-ID: 871E62626C554CE95488823752CBD5F3673A3EF3DCE9C67BD916C809914B40ED
Session-ID-ctx: 01000000
Master-Key: A7CEFC571974BE02CAC305269DC59F76EA9F0B180CB6642697A68251F2D2BB57E51DBBB4C7885573192AE9AEE220FACD
Key-Arg : None
Start Time: 948459261
Timeout : 300 (sec)
Verify return code 0 (ok)
Theses are described below in more detail.
Protocol
this is the protocol in use TLSv1, SSLv3 or SSLv2.
Cipher
the cipher used this is the actual raw SSL or TLS cipher
code, see the SSL or TLS specifications for more infor-
mation.
Session-ID
the SSL session ID in hex format.
Session-ID-ctx
the session ID context in hex format.
Master-Key
this is the SSL session master key.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
Key-Arg
the key argument, this is only used in SSL v2.
Start Time
this is the session start time represented as an integer
in standard Unix format.
Timeout
the timeout in seconds.
Verify return code
this is the return code when an SSL client certificate
is verified.
The PEM encoded session format uses the header and footer
lines:
-----BEGIN SSL SESSION PARAMETERS-----
-----END SSL SESSION PARAMETERS-----
Since the SSL session output contains the master key it is
possible to read the contents of an encrypted session using
this information. Therefore appropriate security precautions
should be taken if the information is being output by a
"real" application. This is however strongly discouraged and
should only be used for debugging purposes.
The cipher and start time should be printed out in human
readable form.
ciphers(1), s_server(1)
smime - S/MIME utility
openssl smime [-encrypt] [-decrypt] [-sign] [-verify]
[-pk7out] [-des] [-des3] [-rc2-40] [-rc2-64] [-rc2-128]
[-aes128] [-aes192] [-aes256] [-in file] [-certfile file]
[-signer file] [-recip file] [-inform SMIME|PEM|DER] [-pas-
sin arg] [-inkey file] [-out file] [-outform SMIME|PEM|DER]
[-content file] [-to addr] [-from ad] [-subject s] [-text]
[-rand file(s)] [cert.pem]...
The smime command handles S/MIME mail. It can encrypt,
decrypt, sign and verify S/MIME messages.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
There are five operation options that set the type of opera-
tion to be performed. The meaning of the other options
varies according to the operation type.
-encrypt
encrypt mail for the given recipient certificates. Input
file is the message to be encrypted. The output file is
the encrypted mail in MIME format.
-decrypt
decrypt mail using the supplied certificate and private
key. Expects an encrypted mail message in MIME format
for the input file. The decrypted mail is written to the
output file.
-sign
sign mail using the supplied certificate and private
key. Input file is the message to be signed. The signed
message in MIME format is written to the output file.
-verify
verify signed mail. Expects a signed mail message on
input and outputs the signed data. Both clear text and
opaque signing is supported.
-pk7out
takes an input message and writes out a PEM encoded
PKCS#7 structure.
-in filename
the input message to be encrypted or signed or the MIME
message to be decrypted or verified.
-inform SMIME|PEM|DER
this specifies the input format for the PKCS#7 struc-
ture. The default is SMIME which reads an S/MIME format
message. PEM and DER format change this to expect PEM
and DER format PKCS#7 structures instead. This currently
only affects the input format of the PKCS#7 structure,
if no PKCS#7 structure is being input (for example with
-encrypt or -sign) this option has no effect.
-out filename
the message text that has been decrypted or verified or
the output MIME format message that has been signed or
verified.
-outform SMIME|PEM|DER
this specifies the output format for the PKCS#7 struc-
ture. The default is SMIME which write an S/MIME format
message. PEM and DER format change this to write PEM and
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
DER format PKCS#7 structures instead. This currently
only affects the output format of the PKCS#7 structure,
if no PKCS#7 structure is being output (for example with
-verify or -decrypt) this option has no effect.
-content filename
This specifies a file containing the detached content,
this is only useful with the -verify command. This is
only usable if the PKCS#7 structure is using the
detached signature form where the content is not
included. This option will override any content if the
input format is S/MIME and it uses the multipart/signed
MIME content type.
-text
this option adds plain text (text/plain) MIME headers to
the supplied message if encrypting or signing. If
decrypting or verifying it strips off text headers: if
the decrypted or verified message is not of MIME type
text/plain then an error occurs.
-CAfile file
a file containing trusted CA certificates, only used
with -verify.
-CApath dir
a directory containing trusted CA certificates, only
used with -verify. This directory must be a standard
certificate directory: that is a hash of each subject
name (using x509 -hash) should be linked to each certi-
ficate.
-des -des3 -rc2-40 -rc2-64 -rc2-128 -aes128 -aes192 -aes256
the encryption algorithm to use. DES (56 bits), triple
DES (168 bits), 40, 64 or 128 bit RC2 or 128, 192 or 256
bit AES respectively. If not specified triple DES is
used. Only used with -encrypt.
-nointern
when verifying a message normally certificates (if any)
included in the message are searched for the signing
certificate. With this option only the certificates
specified in the -certfile option are used. The supplied
certificates can still be used as untrusted CAs however.
-noverify
do not verify the signers certificate of a signed mes-
sage.
-nochain
do not do chain verification of signers certificates:
that is don't use the certificates in the signed message
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
as untrusted CAs.
-nosigs
don't try to verify the signatures on the message.
-nocerts
when signing a message the signer's certificate is nor-
mally included with this option it is excluded. This
will reduce the size of the signed message but the
verifier must have a copy of the signers certificate
available locally (passed using the -certfile option for
example).
-noattr
normally when a message is signed a set of attributes
are included which include the signing time and sup-
ported symmetric algorithms. With this option they are
not included.
-binary
normally the input message is converted to "canonical"
format which is effectively using CR and LF as end of
line: as required by the S/MIME specification. When this
option is present no translation occurs. This is useful
when handling binary data which may not be in MIME for-
mat.
-nodetach
when signing a message use opaque signing: this form is
more resistant to translation by mail relays but it can-
not be read by mail agents that do not support S/MIME.
Without this option cleartext signing with the MIME type
multipart/signed is used.
-certfile file
allows additional certificates to be specified. When
signing these will be included with the message. When
verifying these will be searched for the signers certi-
ficates. The certificates should be in PEM format.
-signer file
the signers certificate when signing a message. If a
message is being verified then the signers certificates
will be written to this file if the verification was
successful.
-recip file
the recipients certificate when decrypting a message.
This certificate must match one of the recipients of the
message or an error occurs.
-inkey file
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
the private key to use when signing or decrypting. This
must match the corresponding certificate. If this option
is not specified then the private key must be included
in the certificate file specified with the -recip or
-signer file.
-passin arg
the private key password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-rand file(s)
a file or files containing random data used to seed the
random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
RAND_egd(3)). Multiple files can be specified separated
by a OS-dependent character. The separator is ; for
MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.
cert.pem...
one or more certificates of message recipients: used
when encrypting a message.
-to, -from, -subject
the relevant mail headers. These are included outside
the signed portion of a message so they may be included
manually. If signing then many S/MIME mail clients check
the signers certificate's email address matches that
specified in the From: address.
The MIME message must be sent without any blank lines
between the headers and the output. Some mail programs will
automatically add a blank line. Piping the mail directly to
sendmail is one way to achieve the correct format.
The supplied message to be signed or encrypted must include
the necessary MIME headers or many S/MIME clients wont
display it properly (if at all). You can use the -text
option to automatically add plain text headers.
A "signed and encrypted" message is one where a signed mes-
sage is then encrypted. This can be produced by encrypting
an already signed message: see the examples section.
This version of the program only allows one signer per mes-
sage but it will verify multiple signers on received mes-
sages. Some S/MIME clients choke if a message contains mul-
tiple signers. It is possible to sign messages "in parallel"
by signing an already signed message.
The options -encrypt and -decrypt reflect common usage in
S/MIME clients. Strictly speaking these process PKCS#7
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
enveloped data: PKCS#7 encrypted data is used for other pur-
poses.
0 the operation was completely successfully.
1 an error occurred parsing the command options.
2 one of the input files could not be read.
3 an error occurred creating the PKCS#7 file or when read-
ing the MIME message.
4 an error occurred decrypting or verifying the message.
5 the message was verified correctly but an error occurred
writing out the signers certificates.
Create a cleartext signed message:
openssl smime -sign -in message.txt -text -out mail.msg \
-signer mycert.pem
Create and opaque signed message
openssl smime -sign -in message.txt -text -out mail.msg -nodetach \
-signer mycert.pem
Create a signed message, include some additional certifi-
cates and read the private key from another file:
openssl smime -sign -in in.txt -text -out mail.msg \
-signer mycert.pem -inkey mykey.pem -certfile mycerts.pem
Send a signed message under Unix directly to sendmail,
including headers:
openssl smime -sign -in in.txt -text -signer mycert.pem \
-from steve@openssl.org -to someone@somewhere \
-subject "Signed message" | sendmail someone@somewhere
Verify a message and extract the signer's certificate if
successful:
openssl smime -verify -in mail.msg -signer user.pem -out signedtext.txt
Send encrypted mail using triple DES:
openssl smime -encrypt -in in.txt -from steve@openssl.org \
-to someone@somewhere -subject "Encrypted message" \
-des3 user.pem -out mail.msg
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
Sign and encrypt mail:
openssl smime -sign -in ml.txt -signer my.pem -text \
| openssl smime -encrypt -out mail.msg \
-from steve@openssl.org -to someone@somewhere \
-subject "Signed and Encrypted message" -des3 user.pem
Note: the encryption command does not include the -text
option because the message being encrypted already has MIME
headers.
Decrypt mail:
openssl smime -decrypt -in mail.msg -recip mycert.pem -inkey key.pem
The output from Netscape form signing is a PKCS#7 structure
with the detached signature format. You can use this program
to verify the signature by line wrapping the base64 encoded
structure and surrounding it with:
-----BEGIN PKCS7-----
-----END PKCS7-----
and using the command,
openssl smime -verify -inform PEM -in signature.pem -content content.txt
alternatively you can base64 decode the signature and use
openssl smime -verify -inform DER -in signature.der -content content.txt
The MIME parser isn't very clever: it seems to handle most
messages that I've thrown at it but it may choke on others.
The code currently will only write out the signer's certifi-
cate to a file: if the signer has a separate encryption cer-
tificate this must be manually extracted. There should be
some heuristic that determines the correct encryption certi-
ficate.
Ideally a database should be maintained of a certificates
for each email address.
The code doesn't currently take note of the permitted sym-
metric encryption algorithms as supplied in the SMIMECapa-
bilities signed attribute. this means the user has to manu-
ally include the correct encryption algorithm. It should
store the list of permitted ciphers in a database and only
use those.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
No revocation checking is done on the signer's certificate.
The current code can only handle S/MIME v2 messages, the
more complex S/MIME v3 structures may cause parsing errors.
speed - test library performance
openssl speed [-engine id] [md2] [mdc2] [md4] [md5] [hmac]
[sha1] [sha256] [sha512] [rmd160] [rc4] [des-cbc] [des-ede3]
[des] [idea-cbc] [rc2-cbc] [rc5-cbc] [bf-cbc] [cast-cbc]
[aes-128-cbc] [aes-192-cbc] [aes-256-cbc] [aes] [rsa512]
[rsa1024] [rsa2048] [rsa4096] [rsa] [dsa512] [dsa1024]
[dsa2048]
This command is used to test the performance of crypto-
graphic algorithms.
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause speed to attempt to obtain a functional reference
to the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
[zero or more test algorithms]
If any options are given, speed tests those algorithms,
otherwise all of the above are tested.
spkac - SPKAC printing and generating utility
openssl spkac [-in filename] [-out filename] [-key keyfile]
[-passin arg] [-challenge string] [-pubkey] [-spkac spkac-
name] [-spksect section] [-noout] [-verify] [-engine id]
The spkac command processes Netscape signed public key and
challenge (SPKAC) files. It can print out their contents,
verify the signature and produce its own SPKACs from a sup-
plied private key.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read from or stan-
dard input if this option is not specified. Ignored if
the -key option is used.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-out filename
specifies the output filename to write to or standard
output by default.
-key keyfile
create an SPKAC file using the private key in keyfile.
The -in, -noout, -spksect and -verify options are
ignored if present.
-passin password
the input file password source. For more information
about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS
section in openssl(1).
-challenge string
specifies the challenge string if an SPKAC is being
created.
-spkac spkacname
allows an alternative name form the variable containing
the SPKAC. The default is "SPKAC". This option affects
both generated and input SPKAC files.
-spksect section
allows an alternative name form the section containing
the SPKAC. The default is the default section.
-noout
don't output the text version of the SPKAC (not used if
an SPKAC is being created).
-pubkey
output the public key of an SPKAC (not used if an SPKAC
is being created).
-verify
verifies the digital signature on the supplied SPKAC.
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
Print out the contents of an SPKAC:
openssl spkac -in spkac.cnf
Verify the signature of an SPKAC:
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
openssl spkac -in spkac.cnf -noout -verify
Create an SPKAC using the challenge string "hello":
openssl spkac -key key.pem -challenge hello -out spkac.cnf
Example of an SPKAC, (long lines split up for clarity):
SPKAC=MIG5MGUwXDANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAANLADBIAkEA1cCoq2Wa3Ixs47uI7F\
PVwHVIPDx5yso105Y6zpozam135a8R0CpoRvkkigIyXfcCjiVi5oWk+6FfPaD03u\
PFoQIDAQABFgVoZWxsbzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQQFAANBAFpQtY/FojdwkJh1bEIYuc\
2EeM2KHTWPEepWYeawvHD0gQ3DngSC75YCWnnDdq+NQ3F+X4deMx9AaEglZtULwV\
4=
A created SPKAC with suitable DN components appended can be
fed into the ca utility.
SPKACs are typically generated by Netscape when a form is
submitted containing the KEYGEN tag as part of the certifi-
cate enrollment process.
The challenge string permits a primitive form of proof of
possession of private key. By checking the SPKAC signature
and a random challenge string some guarantee is given that
the user knows the private key corresponding to the public
key being certified. This is important in some applications.
Without this it is possible for a previous SPKAC to be used
in a "replay attack".
ca(1)
verify - Utility to verify certificates.
openssl verify [-CApath directory] [-CAfile file] [-purpose
purpose] [-untrusted file] [-help] [-issuer_checks] [-ver-
bose] [-] [certificates]
The verify command verifies certificate chains.
-CApath directory
A directory of trusted certificates. The certificates
should have names of the form: hash.0 or have symbolic
links to them of this form ("hash" is the hashed certi-
ficate subject name: see the -hash option of the x509
utility). Under Unix the c_rehash script will automati-
cally create symbolic links to a directory of
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
certificates.
-CAfile file
A file of trusted certificates. The file should contain
multiple certificates in PEM format concatenated
together.
-untrusted file
A file of untrusted certificates. The file should con-
tain multiple certificates
-purpose purpose
the intended use for the certificate. Without this
option no chain verification will be done. Currently
accepted uses are sslclient, sslserver, nssslserver,
smimesign, smimeencrypt. See the VERIFY OPERATION sec-
tion for more information.
-help
prints out a usage message.
-verbose
print extra information about the operations being per-
formed.
-issuer_checks
print out diagnostics relating to searches for the
issuer certificate of the current certificate. This
shows why each candidate issuer certificate was
rejected. However the presence of rejection messages
does not itself imply that anything is wrong: during the
normal verify process several rejections may take place.
- marks the last option. All arguments following this are
assumed to be certificate files. This is useful if the
first certificate filename begins with a -.
certificates
one or more certificates to verify. If no certificate
filenames are included then an attempt is made to read a
certificate from standard input. They should all be in
PEM format.
The verify program uses the same functions as the internal
SSL and S/MIME verification, therefore this description
applies to these verify operations too.
There is one crucial difference between the verify opera-
tions performed by the verify program: wherever possible an
attempt is made to continue after an error whereas normally
the verify operation would halt on the first error. This
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
allows all the problems with a certificate chain to be
determined.
The verify operation consists of a number of separate steps.
Firstly a certificate chain is built up starting from the
supplied certificate and ending in the root CA. It is an
error if the whole chain cannot be built up. The chain is
built up by looking up the issuers certificate of the
current certificate. If a certificate is found which is its
own issuer it is assumed to be the root CA.
The process of 'looking up the issuers certificate' itself
involves a number of steps. In versions of OpenSSL before
0.9.5a the first certificate whose subject name matched the
issuer of the current certificate was assumed to be the
issuers certificate. In OpenSSL 0.9.6 and later all certifi-
cates whose subject name matches the issuer name of the
current certificate are subject to further tests. The
relevant authority key identifier components of the current
certificate (if present) must match the subject key identif-
ier (if present) and issuer and serial number of the candi-
date issuer, in addition the keyUsage extension of the can-
didate issuer (if present) must permit certificate signing.
The lookup first looks in the list of untrusted certificates
and if no match is found the remaining lookups are from the
trusted certificates. The root CA is always looked up in the
trusted certificate list: if the certificate to verify is a
root certificate then an exact match must be found in the
trusted list.
The second operation is to check every untrusted
certificate's extensions for consistency with the supplied
purpose. If the -purpose option is not included then no
checks are done. The supplied or "leaf" certificate must
have extensions compatible with the supplied purpose and all
other certificates must also be valid CA certificates. The
precise extensions required are described in more detail in
the CERTIFICATE EXTENSIONS section of the x509 utility.
The third operation is to check the trust settings on the
root CA. The root CA should be trusted for the supplied pur-
pose. For compatibility with previous versions of SSLeay and
OpenSSL a certificate with no trust settings is considered
to be valid for all purposes.
The final operation is to check the validity of the certifi-
cate chain. The validity period is checked against the
current system time and the notBefore and notAfter dates in
the certificate. The certificate signatures are also checked
at this point.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
If all operations complete successfully then certificate is
considered valid. If any operation fails then the certifi-
cate is not valid.
When a verify operation fails the output messages can be
somewhat cryptic. The general form of the error message is:
server.pem: /C=AU/ST=Queensland/O=CryptSoft Pty Ltd/CN=Test CA (1024 bit)
error 24 at 1 depth lookup:invalid CA certificate
The first line contains the name of the certificate being
verified followed by the subject name of the certificate.
The second line contains the error number and the depth. The
depth is number of the certificate being verified when a
problem was detected starting with zero for the certificate
being verified itself then 1 for the CA that signed the cer-
tificate and so on. Finally a text version of the error
number is presented.
An exhaustive list of the error codes and messages is shown
below, this also includes the name of the error code as
defined in the header file x509_vfy.h Some of the error
codes are defined but never returned: these are described as
"unused".
0 X509_V_OK: ok
the operation was successful.
2 X509_V_ERR_UNABLE_TO_GET_ISSUER_CERT: unable to get issuer cer-
tificate
the issuer certificate could not be found: this occurs
if the issuer certificate of an untrusted certificate
cannot be found.
3 X509_V_ERR_UNABLE_TO_GET_CRL unable to get certificate CRL
the CRL of a certificate could not be found. Unused.
4 X509_V_ERR_UNABLE_TO_DECRYPT_CERT_SIGNATURE: unable to decrypt
certificate's signature
the certificate signature could not be decrypted. This
means that the actual signature value could not be
determined rather than it not matching the expected
value, this is only meaningful for RSA keys.
5 X509_V_ERR_UNABLE_TO_DECRYPT_CRL_SIGNATURE: unable to decrypt
CRL's signature
the CRL signature could not be decrypted: this means
that the actual signature value could not be determined
rather than it not matching the expected value. Unused.
6 X509_V_ERR_UNABLE_TO_DECODE_ISSUER_PUBLIC_KEY: unable to decode
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
issuer public key
the public key in the certificate SubjectPublicKeyInfo
could not be read.
7 X509_V_ERR_CERT_SIGNATURE_FAILURE: certificate signature
failure
the signature of the certificate is invalid.
8 X509_V_ERR_CRL_SIGNATURE_FAILURE: CRL signature failure
the signature of the certificate is invalid. Unused.
9 X509_V_ERR_CERT_NOT_YET_VALID: certificate is not yet valid
the certificate is not yet valid: the notBefore date is
after the current time.
10 X509_V_ERR_CERT_HAS_EXPIRED: certificate has expired
the certificate has expired: that is the notAfter date
is before the current time.
11 X509_V_ERR_CRL_NOT_YET_VALID: CRL is not yet valid
the CRL is not yet valid. Unused.
12 X509_V_ERR_CRL_HAS_EXPIRED: CRL has expired
the CRL has expired. Unused.
13 X509_V_ERR_ERROR_IN_CERT_NOT_BEFORE_FIELD: format error in
certificate's notBefore field
the certificate notBefore field contains an invalid
time.
14 X509_V_ERR_ERROR_IN_CERT_NOT_AFTER_FIELD: format error in
certificate's notAfter field
the certificate notAfter field contains an invalid time.
15 X509_V_ERR_ERROR_IN_CRL_LAST_UPDATE_FIELD: format error in
CRL's lastUpdate field
the CRL lastUpdate field contains an invalid time.
Unused.
16 X509_V_ERR_ERROR_IN_CRL_NEXT_UPDATE_FIELD: format error in
CRL's nextUpdate field
the CRL nextUpdate field contains an invalid time.
Unused.
17 X509_V_ERR_OUT_OF_MEM: out of memory
an error occurred trying to allocate memory. This should
never happen.
18 X509_V_ERR_DEPTH_ZERO_SELF_SIGNED_CERT: self signed certifi-
cate
the passed certificate is self signed and the same cer-
tificate cannot be found in the list of trusted
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
certificates.
19 X509_V_ERR_SELF_SIGNED_CERT_IN_CHAIN: self signed certificate
in certificate chain
the certificate chain could be built up using the
untrusted certificates but the root could not be found
locally.
20 X509_V_ERR_UNABLE_TO_GET_ISSUER_CERT_LOCALLY: unable to get
local issuer certificate
the issuer certificate of a locally looked up certifi-
cate could not be found. This normally means the list of
trusted certificates is not complete.
21 X509_V_ERR_UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE: unable to verify
the first certificate
no signatures could be verified because the chain con-
tains only one certificate and it is not self signed.
22 X509_V_ERR_CERT_CHAIN_TOO_LONG: certificate chain too long
the certificate chain length is greater than the sup-
plied maximum depth. Unused.
23 X509_V_ERR_CERT_REVOKED: certificate revoked
the certificate has been revoked. Unused.
24 X509_V_ERR_INVALID_CA: invalid CA certificate
a CA certificate is invalid. Either it is not a CA or
its extensions are not consistent with the supplied pur-
pose.
25 X509_V_ERR_PATH_LENGTH_EXCEEDED: path length constraint
exceeded
the basicConstraints pathlength parameter has been
exceeded.
26 X509_V_ERR_INVALID_PURPOSE: unsupported certificate purpose
the supplied certificate cannot be used for the speci-
fied purpose.
27 X509_V_ERR_CERT_UNTRUSTED: certificate not trusted
the root CA is not marked as trusted for the specified
purpose.
28 X509_V_ERR_CERT_REJECTED: certificate rejected
the root CA is marked to reject the specified purpose.
29 X509_V_ERR_SUBJECT_ISSUER_MISMATCH: subject issuer mismatch
the current candidate issuer certificate was rejected
because its subject name did not match the issuer name
of the current certificate. Only displayed when the
-issuer_checks option is set.
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30 X509_V_ERR_AKID_SKID_MISMATCH: authority and subject key iden-
tifier mismatch
the current candidate issuer certificate was rejected
because its subject key identifier was present and did
not match the authority key identifier current certifi-
cate. Only displayed when the -issuer_checks option is
set.
31 X509_V_ERR_AKID_ISSUER_SERIAL_MISMATCH: authority and issuer
serial number mismatch
the current candidate issuer certificate was rejected
because its issuer name and serial number was present
and did not match the authority key identifier of the
current certificate. Only displayed when the
-issuer_checks option is set.
32 X509_V_ERR_KEYUSAGE_NO_CERTSIGN:key usage does not include
certificate signing
the current candidate issuer certificate was rejected
because its keyUsage extension does not permit certifi-
cate signing.
50 X509_V_ERR_APPLICATION_VERIFICATION: application verification
failure
an application specific error. Unused.
Although the issuer checks are a considerable improvement
over the old technique they still suffer from limitations in
the underlying X509_LOOKUP API. One consequence of this is
that trusted certificates with matching subject name must
either appear in a file (as specified by the -CAfile option)
or a directory (as specified by -CApath. If they occur in
both then only the certificates in the file will be recog-
nised.
Previous versions of OpenSSL assume certificates with match-
ing subject name are identical and mishandled them.
x509(1)
version - print OpenSSL version information
openssl version [-a] [-v] [-b] [-o] [-f] [-p]
This command is used to print out version information about
OpenSSL.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-a all information, this is the same as setting all the
other flags.
-v the current OpenSSL version.
-b the date the current version of OpenSSL was built.
-o option information: various options set when the library
was built.
-c compilation flags.
-p platform setting.
-d OPENSSLDIR setting.
The output of openssl version -a would typically be used
when sending in a bug report.
The -d option was added in OpenSSL 0.9.7.
x509 - Certificate display and signing utility
openssl x509 [-inform DER|PEM|NET] [-outform DER|PEM|NET]
[-keyform DER|PEM] [-CAform DER|PEM] [-CAkeyform DER|PEM]
[-in filename] [-out filename] [-serial] [-hash]
[-issuer_hash] [-issuer_hash_old] [-subject_hash]
[-subject_hash_old] [-subject] [-issuer] [-nameopt option]
[-email] [-startdate] [-enddate] [-purpose] [-dates]
[-modulus] [-fingerprint] [-alias] [-noout] [-trustout]
[-clrtrust] [-clrreject] [-addtrust arg] [-addreject arg]
[-setalias arg] [-days arg] [-set_serial n] [-signkey
filename] [-x509toreq] [-req] [-CA filename] [-CAkey
filename] [-CAcreateserial] [-CAserial filename] [-text]
[-C] [-md2|-md5|-sha1] [-clrext] [-extfile filename]
[-extensions section] [-engine id]
The x509 command is a multi purpose certificate utility. It
can be used to display certificate information, convert cer-
tificates to various forms, sign certificate requests like a
"mini CA" or edit certificate trust settings.
Since there are a large number of options they will split up
into various sections.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
INPUT, OUTPUT AND GENERAL PURPOSE OPTIONS
-inform DER|PEM|NET
This specifies the input format normally the command
will expect an X509 certificate but this can change if
other options such as -req are present. The DER format
is the DER encoding of the certificate and PEM is the
base64 encoding of the DER encoding with header and
footer lines added. The NET option is an obscure
Netscape server format that is now obsolete.
-outform DER|PEM|NET
This specifies the output format, the options have the
same meaning as the -inform option.
-in filename
This specifies the input filename to read a certificate
from or standard input if this option is not specified.
-out filename
This specifies the output filename to write to or stan-
dard output by default.
-md2|-md5|-sha1
the digest to use. This affects any signing or display
option that uses a message digest, such as the -finger-
print, -signkey and -CA options. If not specified then
MD5 is used. If the key being used to sign with is a DSA
key then this option has no effect: SHA1 is always used
with DSA keys.
-engine id
specifying an engine (by it's unique id string) will
cause req to attempt to obtain a functional reference to
the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed.
The engine will then be set as the default for all
available algorithms.
DISPLAY OPTIONS
Note: the -alias and -purpose options are also display
options but are described in the TRUST SETTINGS section.
-text
prints out the certificate in text form. Full details
are output including the public key, signature algo-
rithms, issuer and subject names, serial number any
extensions present and any trust settings.
-certopt option
customise the output format used with -text. The option
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
argument can be a single option or multiple options
separated by commas. The -certopt switch may be also be
used more than once to set multiple options. See the
TEXT OPTIONS section for more information.
-noout
this option prevents output of the encoded version of
the request.
-modulus
this option prints out the value of the modulus of the
public key contained in the certificate.
-serial
outputs the certificate serial number.
-hash
outputs the "hash" of the certificate subject name. This
is used in OpenSSL to form an index to allow certifi-
cates in a directory to be looked up by subject name.
-issuer_hash
outputs the OpenSSL 1.x hash of the certificate issuer.
-issuer_hash_old
outputs the OpenSSL 0.x hash of the certificate issuer.
-subject_hash
outputs the OpenSSL 1.x hash of the certificate subject.
-subject_hash_old
outputs the OpenSSL 0.x hash of the certificate subject.
The -hash option is currently aliased to this option,
and is aliased to -subject_hash in future OpenSSL ver-
sions.
-subject
outputs the subject name.
-issuer
outputs the issuer name.
-nameopt option
option which determines how the subject or issuer names
are displayed. The option argument can be a single
option or multiple options separated by commas. Alter-
natively the -nameopt switch may be used more than once
to set multiple options. See the NAME OPTIONS section
for more information.
-email
outputs the email address(es) if any.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-startdate
prints out the start date of the certificate, that is
the notBefore date.
-enddate
prints out the expiry date of the certificate, that is
the notAfter date.
-dates
prints out the start and expiry dates of a certificate.
-fingerprint
prints out the digest of the DER encoded version of the
whole certificate (see digest options).
-C this outputs the certificate in the form of a C source
file.
TRUST SETTINGS
Please note these options are currently experimental and may
well change.
A trusted certificate is an ordinary certificate which has
several additional pieces of information attached to it such
as the permitted and prohibited uses of the certificate and
an "alias".
Normally when a certificate is being verified at least one
certificate must be "trusted". By default a trusted certifi-
cate must be stored locally and must be a root CA: any cer-
tificate chain ending in this CA is then usable for any pur-
pose.
Trust settings currently are only used with a root CA. They
allow a finer control over the purposes the root CA can be
used for. For example a CA may be trusted for SSL client but
not SSL server use.
See the description of the verify utility for more informa-
tion on the meaning of trust settings.
Future versions of OpenSSL will recognize trust settings on
any certificate: not just root CAs.
-trustout
this causes x509 to output a trusted certificate. An
ordinary or trusted certificate can be input but by
default an ordinary certificate is output and any trust
settings are discarded. With the -trustout option a
trusted certificate is output. A trusted certificate is
automatically output if any trust settings are modified.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-setalias arg
sets the alias of the certificate. This will allow the
certificate to be referred to using a nickname for exam-
ple "Steve's Certificate".
-alias
outputs the certificate alias, if any.
-clrtrust
clears all the permitted or trusted uses of the certifi-
cate.
-clrreject
clears all the prohibited or rejected uses of the certi-
ficate.
-addtrust arg
adds a trusted certificate use. Any object name can be
used here but currently only clientAuth (SSL client
use), serverAuth (SSL server use) and emailProtection
(S/MIME email) are used. Other OpenSSL applications may
define additional uses.
-addreject arg
adds a prohibited use. It accepts the same values as the
-addtrust option.
-purpose
this option performs tests on the certificate extensions
and outputs the results. For a more complete description
see the CERTIFICATE EXTENSIONS section.
SIGNING OPTIONS
The x509 utility can be used to sign certificates and
requests: it can thus behave like a "mini CA".
-signkey filename
this option causes the input file to be self signed
using the supplied private key.
If the input file is a certificate it sets the issuer
name to the subject name (i.e. makes it self signed)
changes the public key to the supplied value and changes
the start and end dates. The start date is set to the
current time and the end date is set to a value deter-
mined by the -days option. Any certificate extensions
are retained unless the -clrext option is supplied.
If the input is a certificate request then a self signed
certificate is created using the supplied private key
using the subject name in the request.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
-clrext
delete any extensions from a certificate. This option is
used when a certificate is being created from another
certificate (for example with the -signkey or the -CA
options). Normally all extensions are retained.
-keyform PEM|DER
specifies the format (DER or PEM) of the private key
file used in the -signkey option.
-days arg
specifies the number of days to make a certificate valid
for. The default is 30 days.
-x509toreq
converts a certificate into a certificate request. The
-signkey option is used to pass the required private
key.
-req
by default a certificate is expected on input. With this
option a certificate request is expected instead.
-set_serial n
specifies the serial number to use. This option can be
used with either the -signkey or -CA options. If used in
conjunction with the -CA option the serial number file
(as specified by the -CAserial or -CAcreateserial
options) is not used.
The serial number can be decimal or hex (if preceded by
0x). Negative serial numbers can also be specified but
their use is not recommended.
-CA filename
specifies the CA certificate to be used for signing.
When this option is present x509 behaves like a "mini
CA". The input file is signed by this CA using this
option: that is its issuer name is set to the subject
name of the CA and it is digitally signed using the CAs
private key.
This option is normally combined with the -req option.
Without the -req option the input is a certificate which
must be self signed.
-CAkey filename
sets the CA private key to sign a certificate with. If
this option is not specified then it is assumed that the
CA private key is present in the CA certificate file.
-CAserial filename
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
sets the CA serial number file to use.
When the -CA option is used to sign a certificate it
uses a serial number specified in a file. This file con-
sist of one line containing an even number of hex digits
with the serial number to use. After each use the serial
number is incremented and written out to the file again.
The default filename consists of the CA certificate file
base name with ".srl" appended. For example if the CA
certificate file is called "mycacert.pem" it expects to
find a serial number file called "mycacert.srl".
-CAcreateserial
with this option the CA serial number file is created if
it does not exist: it will contain the serial number
"02" and the certificate being signed will have the 1 as
its serial number. Normally if the -CA option is speci-
fied and the serial number file does not exist it is an
error.
-extfile filename
file containing certificate extensions to use. If not
specified then no extensions are added to the certifi-
cate.
-extensions section
the section to add certificate extensions from. If this
option is not specified then the extensions should
either be contained in the unnamed (default) section or
the default section should contain a variable called
"extensions" which contains the section to use.
NAME OPTIONS
The nameopt command line switch determines how the subject
and issuer names are displayed. If no nameopt switch is
present the default "oneline" format is used which is compa-
tible with previous versions of OpenSSL. Each option is
described in detail below, all options can be preceded by a
- to turn the option off. Only the first four will normally
be used.
compat
use the old format. This is equivalent to specifying no
name options at all.
RFC2253
displays names compatible with RFC2253 equivalent to
esc_2253, esc_ctrl, esc_msb, utf8, dump_nostr,
dump_unknown, dump_der, sep_comma_plus, dn_rev and
sname.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
oneline
a oneline format which is more readable than RFC2253. It
is equivalent to specifying the esc_2253, esc_ctrl,
esc_msb, utf8, dump_nostr, dump_der, use_quote,
sep_comma_plus_space, space_eq and sname options.
multiline
a multiline format. It is equivalent esc_ctrl, esc_msb,
sep_multiline, space_eq, lname and align.
esc_2253
escape the "special" characters required by RFC2253 in a
field That is ,+"<>;. Additionally # is escaped at the
beginning of a string and a space character at the
beginning or end of a string.
esc_ctrl
escape control characters. That is those with ASCII
values less than 0x20 (space) and the delete (0x7f)
character. They are escaped using the RFC2253 \XX nota-
tion (where XX are two hex digits representing the char-
acter value).
esc_msb
escape characters with the MSB set, that is with ASCII
values larger than 127.
use_quote
escapes some characters by surrounding the whole string
with " characters, without the option all escaping is
done with the \ character.
utf8
convert all strings to UTF8 format first. This is
required by RFC2253. If you are lucky enough to have a
UTF8 compatible terminal then the use of this option
(and not setting esc_msb) may result in the correct
display of multibyte (international) characters. Is this
option is not present then multibyte characters larger
than 0xff will be represented using the format \UXXXX
for 16 bits and \WXXXXXXXX for 32 bits. Also if this
option is off any UTF8Strings will be converted to their
character form first.
no_type
this option does not attempt to interpret multibyte
characters in any way. That is their content octets are
merely dumped as though one octet represents each char-
acter. This is useful for diagnostic purposes but will
result in rather odd looking output.
show_type
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
show the type of the ASN1 character string. The type
precedes the field contents. For example "BMPSTRING:
Hello World".
dump_der
when this option is set any fields that need to be hex-
dumped will be dumped using the DER encoding of the
field. Otherwise just the content octets will be
displayed. Both options use the RFC2253 #XXXX... format.
dump_nostr
dump non character string types (for example OCTET
STRING) if this option is not set then non character
string types will be displayed as though each content
octet represents a single character.
dump_all
dump all fields. This option when used with dump_der
allows the DER encoding of the structure to be unambigu-
ously determined.
dump_unknown
dump any field whose OID is not recognised by OpenSSL.
sep_comma_plus, sep_comma_plus_space, sep_semi_plus_space,
sep_multiline
these options determine the field separators. The first
character is between RDNs and the second between multi-
ple AVAs (multiple AVAs are very rare and their use is
discouraged). The options ending in "space" additionally
place a space after the separator to make it more read-
able. The sep_multiline uses a linefeed character for
the RDN separator and a spaced + for the AVA separator.
It also indents the fields by four characters.
dn_rev
reverse the fields of the DN. This is required by
RFC2253. As a side effect this also reverses the order
of multiple AVAs but this is permissible.
nofname, sname, lname, oid
these options alter how the field name is displayed.
nofname does not display the field at all. sname uses
the "short name" form (CN for commonName for example).
lname uses the long form. oid represents the OID in
numerical form and is useful for diagnostic purpose.
align
align field values for a more readable output. Only
usable with sep_multiline.
space_eq
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
places spaces round the = character which follows the
field name.
TEXT OPTIONS
As well as customising the name output format, it is also
possible to customise the actual fields printed using the
certopt options when the text option is present. The default
behaviour is to print all fields.
compatible
use the old format. This is equivalent to specifying no
output options at all.
no_header
don't print header information: that is the lines saying
"Certificate" and "Data".
no_version
don't print out the version number.
no_serial
don't print out the serial number.
no_signame
don't print out the signature algorithm used.
no_validity
don't print the validity, that is the notBefore and
notAfter fields.
no_subject
don't print out the subject name.
no_issuer
don't print out the issuer name.
no_pubkey
don't print out the public key.
no_sigdump
don't give a hexadecimal dump of the certificate signa-
ture.
no_aux
don't print out certificate trust information.
no_extensions
don't print out any X509V3 extensions.
ext_default
retain default extension behaviour: attempt to print out
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
unsupported certificate extensions.
ext_error
print an error message for unsupported certificate
extensions.
ext_parse
ASN1 parse unsupported extensions.
ext_dump
hex dump unsupported extensions.
ca_default
the value used by the ca utility, equivalent to
no_issuer, no_pubkey, no_header, no_version, no_sigdump
and no_signame.
Note: in these examples the '\' means the example should be
all on one line.
Display the contents of a certificate:
openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -text
Display the certificate serial number:
openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -serial
Display the certificate subject name:
openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -subject
Display the certificate subject name in RFC2253 form:
openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -subject -nameopt RFC2253
Display the certificate subject name in oneline form on a
terminal supporting UTF8:
openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -subject -nameopt oneline,-esc_msb
Display the certificate MD5 fingerprint:
openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -fingerprint
Display the certificate SHA1 fingerprint:
openssl x509 -sha1 -in cert.pem -noout -fingerprint
Convert a certificate from PEM to DER format:
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
openssl x509 -in cert.pem -inform PEM -out cert.der -outform DER
Convert a certificate to a certificate request:
openssl x509 -x509toreq -in cert.pem -out req.pem -signkey key.pem
Convert a certificate request into a self signed certificate
using extensions for a CA:
openssl x509 -req -in careq.pem -extfile openssl.cnf -extensions v3_ca \
-signkey key.pem -out cacert.pem
Sign a certificate request using the CA certificate above
and add user certificate extensions:
openssl x509 -req -in req.pem -extfile openssl.cnf -extensions v3_usr \
-CA cacert.pem -CAkey key.pem -CAcreateserial
Set a certificate to be trusted for SSL client use and
change set its alias to "Steve's Class 1 CA"
openssl x509 -in cert.pem -addtrust clientAuth \
-setalias "Steve's Class 1 CA" -out trust.pem
The PEM format uses the header and footer lines:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
it will also handle files containing:
-----BEGIN X509 CERTIFICATE-----
-----END X509 CERTIFICATE-----
Trusted certificates have the lines
-----BEGIN TRUSTED CERTIFICATE-----
-----END TRUSTED CERTIFICATE-----
The conversion to UTF8 format used with the name options
assumes that T61Strings use the ISO8859-1 character set.
This is wrong but Netscape and MSIE do this as do many cer-
tificates. So although this is incorrect it is more likely
to display the majority of certificates correctly.
The -fingerprint option takes the digest of the DER encoded
certificate. This is commonly called a "fingerprint".
Because of the nature of message digests the fingerprint of
a certificate is unique to that certificate and two certifi-
cates with the same fingerprint can be considered to be the
same.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
The Netscape fingerprint uses MD5 whereas MSIE uses SHA1.
The -email option searches the subject name and the subject
alternative name extension. Only unique email addresses will
be printed out: it will not print the same address more than
once.
The -purpose option checks the certificate extensions and
determines what the certificate can be used for. The actual
checks done are rather complex and include various hacks and
workarounds to handle broken certificates and software.
The same code is used when verifying untrusted certificates
in chains so this section is useful if a chain is rejected
by the verify code.
The basicConstraints extension CA flag is used to determine
whether the certificate can be used as a CA. If the CA flag
is true then it is a CA, if the CA flag is false then it is
not a CA. All CAs should have the CA flag set to true.
If the basicConstraints extension is absent then the certi-
ficate is considered to be a "possible CA" other extensions
are checked according to the intended use of the certifi-
cate. A warning is given in this case because the certifi-
cate should really not be regarded as a CA: however it is
allowed to be a CA to work around some broken software.
If the certificate is a V1 certificate (and thus has no
extensions) and it is self signed it is also assumed to be a
CA but a warning is again given: this is to work around the
problem of Verisign roots which are V1 self signed certifi-
cates.
If the keyUsage extension is present then additional res-
traints are made on the uses of the certificate. A CA certi-
ficate must have the keyCertSign bit set if the keyUsage
extension is present.
The extended key usage extension places additional restric-
tions on the certificate uses. If this extension is present
(whether critical or not) the key can only be used for the
purposes specified.
A complete description of each test is given below. The com-
ments about basicConstraints and keyUsage and V1 certifi-
cates above apply to all CA certificates.
SSL Client
The extended key usage extension must be absent or
include the "web client authentication" OID. keyUsage
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
must be absent or it must have the digitalSignature bit
set. Netscape certificate type must be absent or it must
have the SSL client bit set.
SSL Client CA
The extended key usage extension must be absent or
include the "web client authentication" OID. Netscape
certificate type must be absent or it must have the SSL
CA bit set: this is used as a work around if the
basicConstraints extension is absent.
SSL Server
The extended key usage extension must be absent or
include the "web server authentication" and/or one of
the SGC OIDs. keyUsage must be absent or it must have
the digitalSignature, the keyEncipherment set or both
bits set. Netscape certificate type must be absent or
have the SSL server bit set.
SSL Server CA
The extended key usage extension must be absent or
include the "web server authentication" and/or one of
the SGC OIDs. Netscape certificate type must be absent
or the SSL CA bit must be set: this is used as a work
around if the basicConstraints extension is absent.
Netscape SSL Server
For Netscape SSL clients to connect to an SSL server it
must have the keyEncipherment bit set if the keyUsage
extension is present. This isn't always valid because
some cipher suites use the key for digital signing. Oth-
erwise it is the same as a normal SSL server.
Common S/MIME Client Tests
The extended key usage extension must be absent or
include the "email protection" OID. Netscape certificate
type must be absent or should have the S/MIME bit set.
If the S/MIME bit is not set in netscape certificate
type then the SSL client bit is tolerated as an alterna-
tive but a warning is shown: this is because some Ver-
isign certificates don't set the S/MIME bit.
S/MIME Signing
In addition to the common S/MIME client tests the digi-
talSignature bit must be set if the keyUsage extension
is present.
S/MIME Encryption
In addition to the common S/MIME tests the keyEncipher-
ment bit must be set if the keyUsage extension is
present.
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OpenSSLtool(1) OpenSSL OpenSSLtool(1)
S/MIME CA
The extended key usage extension must be absent or
include the "email protection" OID. Netscape certificate
type must be absent or must have the S/MIME CA bit set:
this is used as a work around if the basicConstraints
extension is absent.
CRL Signing
The keyUsage extension must be absent or it must have
the CRL signing bit set.
CRL Signing CA
The normal CA tests apply. Except in this case the
basicConstraints extension must be present.
Extensions in certificates are not transferred to certifi-
cate requests and vice versa.
It is possible to produce invalid certificates or requests
by specifying the wrong private key or using inconsistent
options in some cases: these should be checked.
There should be options to explicitly set such things as
start and end dates rather than an offset from the current
time.
The code to implement the verify behaviour described in the
TRUST SETTINGS is currently being developed. It thus
describes the intended behaviour rather than the current
behaviour. It is hoped that it will represent reality in
OpenSSL 0.9.5 and later.
req(1), ca(1), genrsa(1), gendsa(1), verify(1)
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