Manual Pages for UNIX Darwin command on man ca

CA(1) OpenSSL CA(1)

NAME

ca - sample minimal CA application

SYNOPSIS

ooppeennssssll ccaa [-vveerrbboossee] [-ccoonnffiigg ffiilleennaammee] [-nnaammee sseeccttiioonn] [-ggeennccrrll]

[-rreevvookkee ffiillee] [-ccrrllrreeaassoonn rreeaassoonn] [-ccrrllhhoolldd iinnssttrruuccttiioonn]

[-ccrrllccoommpprroommiissee ttiimmee] [-ccrrllCCAAccoommpprroommiissee ttiimmee] [-ssuubbjj aarrgg] [-ccrrllddaayyss

ddaayyss] [-ccrrllhhoouurrss hhoouurrss] [-ccrrlleexxttss sseeccttiioonn] [-ssttaarrttddaattee ddaattee] [-eennddddaattee

ddaattee] [-ddaayyss aarrgg] [-mmdd aarrgg] [-ppoolliiccyy aarrgg] [-kkeeyyffiillee aarrgg] [-kkeeyy aarrgg]

[-ppaassssiinn aarrgg] [-cceerrtt ffiillee] [-iinn ffiillee] [-oouutt ffiillee] [-nnootteexxtt] [-oouuttddiirr

ddiirr] [-iinnffiilleess] [-ssppkkaacc ffiillee] [-sssscceerrtt ffiillee] [-pprreesseerrvveeDDNN]

[-nnooeemmaaiillDDNN] [-bbaattcchh] [-mmssiieehhaacckk] [-eexxtteennssiioonnss sseeccttiioonn] [-eexxttffiillee

sseeccttiioonn] [-eennggiinnee iidd]

DESCRIPTION

The ccaa command is a minimal CA application. It can be used to sign

certificate requests in a variety of forms and generate CRLs it also

maintains 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

ddeeffaauullttccaa in the ccaa section).

-iinn ffiilleennaammee

an input filename containing a single certificate request to be

signed by the CA.

-sssscceerrtt 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 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.

-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.

-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.

-ppaassssiinn aarrgg

the key password source. For more information about the format of aarrgg see the PPAASSSS PPHHRRAASSEE AARRGGUUMMEENNTTSS section in openssl(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

mandatory or match the CA certificate. Check out the PPOOLLIICCYY FFOORRMMAATT

section for more information.

-mmssiieehhaacckk

this is a legacy option to make ccaa work with very old versions of

the IE certificate enrollment control "certenr3". 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.

-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 compatibility 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 eemmaaiilliinnddnn

keyword can be used in the configuration file to enable this

behaviour.

-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

extensions to be added when a certificate is issued (defaults to

xx550099eexxtteennssiioonnss unless the -eexxttffiillee option is used). If no

extension section is present then, a V1 certificate is created. If

the extension section is present (even if it is empty), then a V3

certificate is created.

-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 it's unique iidd string) will cause rreeqq 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. 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.

-ccrrllrreeaassoonn rreeaassoonn

revocation reason, where rreeaassoonn is one of: uunnssppeecciiffiieedd,

kkeeyyCCoommpprroommiissee, CCAACCoommpprroommiissee, aaffffiilliiaattiioonnCChhaannggeedd, ssuuppeerrsseeddeedd,

cceessssaattiioonnOOffOOppeerraattiioonn, 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.

-ccrrllhhoolldd 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

discouraged by RFC2459) hhoollddIInnssttrruuccttiioonnCCaallllIIssssuueerr or hhoollddIInnssttrruuccttiioonnRReejjeecctt will normally be used.

-ccrrllccoommpprroommiissee ttiimmee

This sets the revocation reason to kkeeyyCCoommpprroommiissee and the compromise

time to ttiimmee. ttiimmee should be in GeneralizedTime format that is YYYYYYYYMMMMDDDDHHHHMMMMSSSSZZ.

-ccrrllCCAAccoommpprroommiissee ttiimmee

This is the same as ccrrllccoommpprroommiissee except the revocation reason is

set to CCAACCoommpprroommiissee.

-ssuubbjj aarrgg

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.

-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.

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 ddeeffaauullttccaa option of the ccaa section of the configuration

file (or in the default section of the configuration file). Besides

ddeeffaauullttccaa, the following options are read directly from the ccaa

section: RANDFILE preserve msiehack 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. ooiiddffiillee 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 followed by white space and finally the long name. ooiiddsseeccttiioonn 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. nneewwcceerrttssddiirr

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. pprriivvaatteekkeeyy

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 RANDegd(3)). ddeeffaauullttddaayyss

the same as the -ddaayyss option. The number of days to certify a

certificate for.

ddeeffaauullttssttaarrttddaattee

the same as the -ssttaarrttddaattee option. The start date to certify a

certificate for. If not set the current time is used.

ddeeffaauulltteennddddaattee

the same as the -eennddddaattee option. Either this option or ddeeffaauullttddaayyss

(or the command line equivalents) must be present. ddeeffaauullttccrrllhhoouurrss ddeeffaauullttccrrllddaayyss

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. ddeeffaauullttmmdd

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. sseerriiaall a text file containing the next serial number to use in hex. Mandatory. This file must be present and contain a valid serial number. xx550099eexxtteennssiioonnss

the same as -eexxtteennssiioonnss.

ccrrlleexxtteennssiioonnss

the same as -ccrrlleexxttss.

pprreesseerrvvee

the same as -pprreesseerrvveeDDNN

eemmaaiilliinnddnn

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

certificate's DN.

mmssiieehhaacckk

the same as -mmssiieehhaacckk

ppoolliiccyy

the same as -ppoolliiccyy. Mandatory. See the PPOOLLIICCYY FFOORRMMAATT section for

more information. nnaammeeoopptt, cceerrttoopptt

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 nnoossiiggnnaammee and nnoossiiggdduummpp are permanently

set and cannot be disabled (this is because the certificate

signature cannot be displayed because the certificate has not been

signed at this point).

For convenience the values ccaaddeeffaauulltt are accepted by 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 ssttrroonnggllyy discouraged

because it only displays fields mentioned in the ppoolliiccyy section,

mishandles multicharacter string types and does not display extensions. ccooppyyeexxtteennssiioonnss

determines how extensions in certificate requests should be

handled. 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 extensions in the request are copied to the certificate:

if the extension 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

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 -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 create 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 '.'. EEXXAAMMPPLLEESS

Note: these examples assume that the ccaa directory structure is already

set up and the relevant files already exist. This usually involves

creating 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/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 v3ca -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 ]

defaultca = CAdefault # The default ca section

[ CAdefault ]

dir = ./demoCA # top dir

database = $dir/index.txt # index file.

newcertsdir = $dir/newcerts # new certs dir

certificate = $dir/cacert.pem # The CA cert

serial = $dir/serial # serial no file

privatekey = $dir/private/cakey.pem# CA private key

RANDFILE = $dir/private/.rand # random number file

defaultdays = 365 # how long to certify for

defaultcrldays= 30 # how long before next CRL

defaultmd = md5 # md to use

policy = policyany # default policy

emailindn = no # Don't add the email into cert DN

nameopt = cadefault # Subject name display option

certopt = cadefault # Certificate display option

copyextensions = none # Don't copy extensions from request

[ policyany ] countryName = supplied stateOrProvinceName = optional organizationName = optional organizationalUnitName = optional commonName = supplied emailAddress = optional FILES

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

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

OOPPEENNSSSSLLCCOONNFF 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 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 certificate.

BUGS

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 ccaa command really needs rewriting or the required functionality

exposed at either a command or interface level so a more friendly

utility (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

configurable.

Cancelling some commands by refusing to certify a certificate can

create 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: nevertheless 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 ccooppyyeexxtteennssiioonnss 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 ccooppyyeexxtteennssiioonnss 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 ccooppyyeexxtteennssiioonnss 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