CA(1) OpenSSL CA(1) NNAAMMEE ca - sample minimal CA application SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS ooppeennssssll ccaa [--vveerrbboossee] [--ccoonnffiigg ffiilleennaammee] [--nnaammee sseeccttiioonn] [--ggeennccrrll] [--rreevvookkee ffiillee] [--ssttaattuuss sseerriiaall] [--uuppddaatteeddbb] [--ccrrll__rreeaassoonn rreeaassoonn] [--ccrrll__hhoolldd iinnssttrruuccttiioonn] [--ccrrll__ccoommpprroommiissee ttiimmee] [--ccrrll__CCAA__ccoommpprroommiissee ttiimmee] [--ccrrllddaayyss ddaayyss] [--ccrrllhhoouurrss hhoouurrss] [--ccrrlleexxttss sseeccttiioonn] [--ssttaarrttddaattee ddaattee] [--eennddddaattee ddaattee] [--ddaayyss aarrgg] [--mmdd aarrgg] [--ppoolliiccyy aarrgg] [--kkeeyyffiillee aarrgg] [--kkeeyyffoorrmm PPEEMM||DDEERR] [--kkeeyy aarrgg] [--ppaassssiinn aarrgg] [--cceerrtt ffiillee] [--sseellff-- ssiiggnn] [--iinn ffiillee] [--oouutt ffiillee] [--nnootteexxtt] [--oouuttddiirr ddiirr] [--iinnffiilleess] [--ssppkkaacc ffiillee] [--ssss__cceerrtt ffiillee] [--pprreesseerrvveeDDNN] [--nnooeemmaaiillDDNN] [--bbaattcchh] [--mmssiiee__hhaacckk] [--eexxtteennssiioonnss sseeccttiioonn] [--eexxttffiillee sseeccttiioonn] [--eennggiinnee iidd] [--ssuubbjj aarrgg] [--uuttff88] [--mmuullttiivvaalluuee--rrddnn] DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN The ccaa command is a minimal CA application. It can be used to sign cer- tificate requests in a variety of forms and generate CRLs it also main- tains a text database of issued certificates and their status. The options descriptions will be divided into each purpose. CCAA OOPPTTIIOONNSS --ccoonnffiigg ffiilleennaammee specifies the configuration file to use. --nnaammee sseeccttiioonn specifies the configuration file section to use (overrides ddeeffaauulltt__ccaa in the ccaa section). --iinn ffiilleennaammee an input filename containing a single certificate request to be signed by the CA. --ssss__cceerrtt ffiilleennaammee a single self signed certificate to be signed by the CA. --ssppkkaacc ffiilleennaammee a file containing a single Netscape signed public key and challenge and additional field values to be signed by the CA. See the SSPPKKAACC FFOORRMMAATT section for information on the required input and output format. --iinnffiilleess if present this should be the last option, all subsequent arguments are assumed to the the names of files containing certificate requests. --oouutt ffiilleennaammee the output file to output certificates to. The default is standard output. The certificate details will also be printed out to this file in PEM format (except that --ssppkkaacc outputs DER format). --oouuttddiirr ddiirreeccttoorryy the directory to output certificates to. The certificate will be written to a filename consisting of the serial number in hex with ".pem" appended. --cceerrtt the CA certificate file. --kkeeyyffiillee ffiilleennaammee the private key to sign requests with. --kkeeyyffoorrmm PPEEMM||DDEERR the format of the data in the private key file. The default is PEM. --kkeeyy ppaasssswwoorrdd 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. --sseellffssiiggnn indicates the issued certificates are to be signed with the key the certificate requests were signed with (given with --kkeeyyffiillee). Cer- ificate requests signed with a different key are ignored. If --ssppkkaacc, --ssss__cceerrtt or --ggeennccrrll are given, --sseellffssiiggnn is ignored. A consequence of using --sseellffssiiggnn is that the self-signed certifi- cate appears among the entries in the certificate database (see the configuration option ddaattaabbaassee), and uses the same serial number counter as all other certificates sign with the self-signed cer- tificate. --ppaassssiinn aarrgg the key password source. For more information about the format of aarrgg see the PPAASSSS PPHHRRAASSEE AARRGGUUMMEENNTTSS section in _o_p_e_n_s_s_l(1). --vveerrbboossee this prints extra details about the operations being performed. --nnootteexxtt don't output the text form of a certificate to the output file. --ssttaarrttddaattee ddaattee this allows the start date to be explicitly set. The format of the date is YYMMDDHHMMSSZ (the same as an ASN1 UTCTime structure). --eennddddaattee ddaattee this allows the expiry date to be explicitly set. The format of the date is YYMMDDHHMMSSZ (the same as an ASN1 UTCTime structure). --ddaayyss aarrgg the number of days to certify the certificate for. --mmdd aallgg the message digest to use. Possible values include md5, sha1 and mdc2. This option also applies to CRLs. --ppoolliiccyy aarrgg this option defines the CA "policy" to use. This is a section in the configuration file which decides which fields should be manda- tory or match the CA certificate. Check out the PPOOLLIICCYY FFOORRMMAATT sec- tion for more information. --mmssiiee__hhaacckk this is a legacy option to make ccaa work with very old versions of the IE certificate enrollment control "certenr3". It used Univer- salStrings 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. --pprreesseerrvveeDDNN 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 compati- bility with the older IE enrollment control which would only accept certificates if their DNs match the order of the request. This is not needed for Xenroll. --nnooeemmaaiillDDNN 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 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 eemmaaiill__iinn__ddnn keyword can be used in the configuration file to enable this behav- iour. --bbaattcchh this sets the batch mode. In this mode no questions will be asked and all certificates will be certified automatically. --eexxtteennssiioonnss sseeccttiioonn the section of the configuration file containing certificate exten- sions to be added when a certificate is issued (defaults to xx550099__eexxtteennssiioonnss unless the --eexxttffiillee option is used). If no exten- sion section is present then, a V1 certificate is created. If the extension section is present (even if it is empty), then a V3 cer- tificate is created. See the:w _x_5_0_9_v_3___c_o_n_f_i_g(5) manual page for details of the extension section format. --eexxttffiillee ffiillee an additional configuration file to read certificate extensions from (using the default section unless the --eexxtteennssiioonnss option is also used). --eennggiinnee iidd specifying an engine (by its unique iidd string) will cause ccaa 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. --ssuubbjj aarrgg supersedes subject name given in the request. The arg must be for- matted as _/_t_y_p_e_0_=_v_a_l_u_e_0_/_t_y_p_e_1_=_v_a_l_u_e_1_/_t_y_p_e_2_=_._._., characters may be escaped by \ (backslash), no spaces are skipped. --uuttff88 this option causes field values to be interpreted 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 config- uration file, must be valid UTF8 strings. --mmuullttiivvaalluuee--rrddnn this option causes the -subj argument to be interpretedt with full support for multivalued RDNs. Example: _/_D_C_=_o_r_g_/_D_C_=_O_p_e_n_S_S_L_/_D_C_=_u_s_e_r_s_/_U_I_D_=_1_2_3_4_5_6_+_C_N_=_J_o_h_n _D_o_e If -multi-rdn is not used then the UID value is _1_2_3_4_5_6_+_C_N_=_J_o_h_n _D_o_e. CCRRLL OOPPTTIIOONNSS --ggeennccrrll this option generates a CRL based on information in the index file. --ccrrllddaayyss nnuumm the number of days before the next CRL is due. That is the days from now to place in the CRL nextUpdate field. --ccrrllhhoouurrss nnuumm the number of hours before the next CRL is due. --rreevvookkee ffiilleennaammee a filename containing a certificate to revoke. --ssttaattuuss sseerriiaall displays the revocation status of the certificate with the speci- fied serial number and exits. --uuppddaatteeddbb Updates the database index to purge expired certificates. --ccrrll__rreeaassoonn rreeaassoonn revocation reason, where rreeaassoonn is one of: uunnssppeecciiffiieedd, kkeeyyCCoommpprroo-- mmiissee, CCAACCoommpprroommiissee, aaffffiilliiaattiioonnCChhaannggeedd, ssuuppeerrsseeddeedd, cceessssaattiioonnOOffOOpp-- eerraattiioonn, cceerrttiiffiiccaatteeHHoolldd or rreemmoovveeFFrroommCCRRLL. The matching of rreeaassoonn is case insensitive. Setting any revocation reason will make the CRL v2. In practive rreemmoovveeFFrroommCCRRLL is not particularly useful because it is only used in delta CRLs which are not currently implemented. --ccrrll__hhoolldd iinnssttrruuccttiioonn This sets the CRL revocation reason code to cceerrttiiffiiccaatteeHHoolldd and the hold instruction to iinnssttrruuccttiioonn which must be an OID. Although any OID can be used only hhoollddIInnssttrruuccttiioonnNNoonnee (the use of which is dis- couraged by RFC2459) hhoollddIInnssttrruuccttiioonnCCaallllIIssssuueerr or hhoollddIInnssttrruuccttiioonn-- RReejjeecctt will normally be used. --ccrrll__ccoommpprroommiissee ttiimmee This sets the revocation reason to kkeeyyCCoommpprroommiissee and the compromise time to ttiimmee. ttiimmee should be in GeneralizedTime format that is YYYYYYYYMMMMDDDDHHHHMMMMSSSSZZ. --ccrrll__CCAA__ccoommpprroommiissee ttiimmee This is the same as ccrrll__ccoommpprroommiissee except the revocation reason is set to CCAACCoommpprroommiissee. --ccrrlleexxttss sseeccttiioonn 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 extensions and nnoott CRL entry extensions. It should be noted that some software (for example Netscape) can't handle V2 CRLs. See _x_5_0_9_v_3___c_o_n_f_i_g(5) manual page for details of the extension section format. CCOONNFFIIGGUURRAATTIIOONN FFIILLEE OOPPTTIIOONNSS The section of the configuration file containing options for ccaa is found as follows: If the --nnaammee command line option is used, then it names the section to be used. Otherwise the section to be used must be named in the ddeeffaauulltt__ccaa option of the ccaa section of the configuration file (or in the default section of the configuration file). Besides ddeeffaauulltt__ccaa, the following options are read directly from the ccaa sec- tion: RANDFILE preserve msie_hack With the exception of RRAANNDDFFIILLEE, this is probably a bug and may change in future releases. Many of the configuration file options are identical to command line options. Where the option is present in the configuration 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. ooiidd__ffiillee This specifies a file containing additional OOBBJJEECCTT IIDDEENNTTIIFFIIEERRSS. Each line of the file should consist of the numerical form of the object identifier followed by white space then the short name fol- lowed by white space and finally the long name. ooiidd__sseeccttiioonn This specifies a section in the configuration file containing extra object identifiers. Each line should consist 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. nneeww__cceerrttss__ddiirr the same as the --oouuttddiirr command line option. It specifies the directory where new certificates will be placed. Mandatory. cceerrttiiffiiccaattee the same as --cceerrtt. It gives the file containing the CA certificate. Mandatory. pprriivvaattee__kkeeyy same as the --kkeeyyffiillee option. The file containing the CA private key. Mandatory. RRAANNDDFFIILLEE a file used to read and write random number seed information, or an EGD socket (see _R_A_N_D___e_g_d(3)). ddeeffaauulltt__ddaayyss the same as the --ddaayyss option. The number of days to certify a cer- tificate for. ddeeffaauulltt__ssttaarrttddaattee the same as the --ssttaarrttddaattee option. The start date to certify a cer- tificate for. If not set the current time is used. ddeeffaauulltt__eennddddaattee the same as the --eennddddaattee option. Either this option or ddeeffaauulltt__ddaayyss (or the command line equivalents) must be present. ddeeffaauulltt__ccrrll__hhoouurrss ddeeffaauulltt__ccrrll__ddaayyss the same as the --ccrrllhhoouurrss and the --ccrrllddaayyss 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. ddeeffaauulltt__mmdd the same as the --mmdd option. The message digest to use. Mandatory. ddaattaabbaassee the text database file to use. Mandatory. This file must be present though initially it will be empty. uunniiqquuee__ssuubbjjeecctt if the value yyeess is given, the valid certificate entries in the database must have unique subjects. if the value nnoo is given, sev- eral valid certificate entries may have the exact same subject. The default value is yyeess, to be compatible with older (pre 0.9.8) versions of OpenSSL. However, to make CA certificate roll-over easier, it's recommended to use the value nnoo, especially if com- bined with the --sseellffssiiggnn command line option. sseerriiaall a text file containing the next serial number to use in hex. Manda- tory. This file must be present and contain a valid serial number. ccrrllnnuummbbeerr a text file containing the next CRL number to use in hex. The crl number will be inserted in the CRLs only if this file exists. If this file is present, it must contain a valid CRL number. xx550099__eexxtteennssiioonnss the same as --eexxtteennssiioonnss. ccrrll__eexxtteennssiioonnss the same as --ccrrlleexxttss. pprreesseerrvvee the same as --pprreesseerrvveeDDNN eemmaaiill__iinn__ddnn the same as --nnooeemmaaiillDDNN. 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 certifi- cate's DN. mmssiiee__hhaacckk the same as --mmssiiee__hhaacckk ppoolliiccyy the same as --ppoolliiccyy. Mandatory. See the PPOOLLIICCYY FFOORRMMAATT section for more information. nnaammee__oopptt, cceerrtt__oopptt these options allow the format used to display the certificate details when asking the user to confirm signing. All the options supported by the xx550099 utilities --nnaammeeoopptt and --cceerrttoopptt switches can be used here, except the nnoo__ssiiggnnaammee and nnoo__ssiiggdduummpp are permanently set and cannot be disabled (this is because the certificate signa- ture cannot be displayed because the certificate has not been signed at this point). For convenience the values ccaa__ddeeffaauulltt are accepted by both to pro- duce a reasonable output. If neither option is present the format used in earlier versions of OpenSSL is used. Use of the old format is ssttrroonnggllyy discouraged because it only displays fields mentioned in the ppoolliiccyy section, mishandles multicharacter string types and does not display exten- sions. ccooppyy__eexxtteennssiioonnss determines how extensions in certificate requests should be han- dled. If set to nnoonnee or this option is not present then extensions are ignored and not copied to the certificate. If set to ccooppyy then any extensions present in the request that are not already present are copied to the certificate. If set to ccooppyyaallll then all exten- sions in the request are copied to the certificate: if the exten- sion is already present in the certificate it is deleted first. See the WWAARRNNIINNGGSS 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. PPOOLLIICCYY FFOORRMMAATT The policy section consists of a set of variables corresponding to cer- tificate 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 --pprreesseerrvveeDDNN option is set but this can be regarded more of a quirk than intended behaviour. SSPPKKAACC FFOORRMMAATT The input to the --ssppkkaacc command line option is a Netscape signed public key and challenge. This will usually come from the KKEEYYGGEENN tag in an HTML form to create a new private key. It is however possible to cre- ate SPKACs using the ssppkkaacc 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 '.'. When processing SPKAC format, the output is DER if the --oouutt flag is used, but PEM format if sending to stdout or the --oouuttddiirr flag is used. EEXXAAMMPPLLEESS Note: these examples assume that the ccaa directory structure is already set up and the relevant files already exist. This usually involves cre- ating a CA certificate and private key with rreeqq, a serial number file and an empty index file and 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/pri- vate/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 ccaa: [ 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 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 FFIILLEESS Note: the location of all files can change either by compile time options, configuration file entries, environment variables 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 EENNVVIIRROONNMMEENNTT VVAARRIIAABBLLEESS OOPPEENNSSSSLL__CCOONNFF reflects the location of master configuration file it can be overridden by the --ccoonnffiigg command line option. RREESSTTRRIICCTTIIOONNSS The text database index file is a critical part of the process 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. V2 CRL features like delta CRLs 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 certificate. BBUUGGSS 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. The ccaa command really needs rewriting or the required functionality exposed at either a command or interface level so a more friendly util- ity (perl script or GUI) can handle things properly. The scripts CCAA..sshh and CCAA..ppll 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 --pprreesseerrvveeDDNN 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 --nnooeemmaaiillDDNN option can be used. The behaviour should be more friendly and config- urable. Cancelling some commands by refusing to certify a certificate can cre- ate an empty file. WWAARRNNIINNGGSS The ccaa command is quirky and at times downright unfriendly. The ccaa 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: nev- ertheless some people are using it for this purpose. The ccaa command is effectively a single user command: no locking is done on the various files and attempts to run more than one ccaa command on the same database can have unpredictable results. The ccooppyy__eexxtteennssiioonnss option should be used with caution. If care is not taken then it can be a security risk. For example if a certificate request contains a basicConstraints extension with CA:TRUE and the ccooppyy__eexxtteennssiioonnss value is set to ccooppyyaallll and the user does not spot this when the certificate is displayed then this will hand the requestor a valid CA certificate. This situation can be avoided by setting ccooppyy__eexxtteennssiioonnss to ccooppyy and including basicConstraints with CA:FALSE in the configuration file. Then if the request contains a basicConstraints extension it will be ignored. It is advisable to also include values for other extensions such as kkeeyyUUssaaggee 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. SSEEEE AALLSSOO _r_e_q(1), _s_p_k_a_c(1), _x_5_0_9(1), _C_A_._p_l(1), _c_o_n_f_i_g(5), _x_5_0_9_v_3___c_o_n_f_i_g(5) 1.0.1u 2016-09-22 CA(1)