OPENSSL-CA(1ossl)

📦 version 3.5.0, in opensuse-leap 16.0

💅 NAME

openssl-ca — a sample minimal CA application 🎀

Okay bestie, real talk: this is the OPENSSL-CA(1ossl) page from the OpenSSL manual, and it's giving "so you wanna be a certificate authority" energy. No cap. 🔥

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

openssl ca [-help] [-verbose] [-quiet] [-config filename] [-name
section] [-section section] [-gencrl] [-revoke file] [-valid file]
[-status serial] [-updatedb] [-crl_reason reason] [-crl_hold
instruction] [-crl_compromise time] [-crl_CA_compromise time]
[-crl_lastupdate date] [-crl_nextupdate date] [-crldays days] [-crlhours
hours] [-crlsec seconds] [-crlexts section] [-startdate date]
[-not_before date] [-enddate date] [-not_after date] [-days arg] [-md
arg] [-policy arg] [-keyfile filename|uri] [-keyform DER|PEM|P12|ENGINE]
[-key arg] [-passin arg] [-cert file] [-certform DER|PEM|P12]
[-selfsign] [-in file] [-inform DER|<PEM>] [-out file] [-notext]
[-dateopt] [-outdir dir] [-infiles] [-spkac file] [-ss_cert file]
[-preserveDN] [-noemailDN] [-batch] [-msie_hack] [-extensions section]
[-extfile section] [-subj arg] [-utf8] [-sigopt nm:v] [-vfyopt nm:v]
[-create_serial] [-rand_serial] [-multivalue-rdn] [-rand files]
[-writerand file] [-engine id] [-provider name] [-provider-path path]
[-provparam [name:]key=value] [-propquery propq] [certreq...]

Yes, that's a LOT of flags. She's highkey extra and we love her for it. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So this command emulates a CA application. Emulates!! Not "is"—emulates. And the manpage is literally pointing you at the WARNINGS section, especially if you're out here thinking about using it productively. Bestie. Read the WARNINGS. I'm serious. 😭

It generates certificates bearing X.509 version 3. Unless you say otherwise with flags, key identifier extensions are included exactly as spelled out in x509v3_config(5). So defaults exist, they're just doing their own thing — vibe check passed by default, fr fr.

What she can do for you:

  • Sign certificate requests (CSRs) in a whole variety of forms 🌸
  • Generate certificate revocation lists (CRLs) 💀
  • Maintain a text database of issued certificates and their status 👑

And when you're signing certificates, you've got options (literally):

  • Single request — point at one with the -in option.
  • Multiple requests — process a whole set by listing a bunch of certreq files after all the options. Main character energy, one at a time or all at once.
Also, ngl, there are wayyy leaner ways of generating certificates — the req and x509 commands can create certificates directly. Peep openssl-req(1) and openssl-x509(1) for the details if you just want the quick route. 🏃‍♀️💨

And the best part? The descriptions of the ca command options are divided up by purpose, so you're not just scrolling a wall of flags wondering what you did to deserve this. Organized. Iconic. Periodt. 🌈

✨ OPTIONS ✨

okay bestie, this is the part where we go through literally every single flag, one by one. no skipping, no "you'll figure it out", none of that. grab a snack 🍓

  • -help — prints a usage message. that's it, that's the whole vibe. when you're lost, she's there 🫶
  • -verbose — spills extra details about the operations being performed. like when your friend gives you the full play-by-play instead of the summary. 🔥
  • -quiet — the opposite energy: prints fewer details about what's going on. genuinely handy during batch scripts or pipelines where you don't want the chatter 💅
  • -config filename — tells it which configuration file to use. it's optional, and if you wanna know what the default value is, go peek at "COMMAND SUMMARY" in openssl(1). ✨
  • -name section, -section section — picks which configuration file section to use, and yes it overrides default_ca in the ca section. boss move 👑
  • -in filename — an input filename holding a single certificate request (CSR) for the CA to sign. one. just one. 🎀
  • -inform DER|PEM — the format used when loading certificate request (CSR) input files. by default PEM is tried first. details live in openssl-format-options(1) 🌸
  • -ss_cert filename — a single self-signed certificate to be signed by the CA. yep, she's signing a cert that already signed itself. character development 💀
  • -spkac filename — a file with a single Netscape signed public key and challenge, plus additional field values, to be signed by the CA. the required input and output format is all in the SPKAC FORMAT section, iykyk 🦋
  • -infiles — if you use it, it must be the last option, because every argument after it gets taken as the name of a file containing certificate requests. last-option energy, no cap 🚨
  • -out filename — the output file for certificates. default is standard output. the certificate details also get printed into this file in PEM format — except that -spkac outputs DER format. yes, that's a whole exception, love that for us 🙈
  • -outdir directory — the directory to write certificates into. the file gets named after the serial number in hex with .pem appended. cute and systematic 💖
  • -cert filename — the CA certificate, which must match with -keyfile. they're a matched set, don't split them up 😭
  • -certform DER|PEM|P12 — the format of the data in certificate input files. unspecified by default. see openssl-format-options(1) ⭐
  • -keyfile filename|uri — the CA private key used to sign certificate requests with. this must match with -cert. same deal as above, they come as a pair 🫶
  • -keyform DER|PEM|P12|ENGINE — the format of the private key input file. unspecified by default. see openssl-format-options(1) 💅
  • -sigopt nm:v — passes options to the signature algorithm during sign operations. the names and values are algorithm-specific and documented in "Signature parameters" in provider-signature(7) 🔥
  • -vfyopt nm:v — passes options to the signature algorithm during verify operations. names and values are algorithm-specific. and lowkey you often need to give this while signing too, because the self-signature of a certificate signing request (CSR) is verified against the included public key — and that verification may need its own set of options. sneaky but important 🌈
  • -key password — the password used to encrypt the private key. ⚠️ on some systems the command line arguments are visible (e.g. when using ps(1) on Unix), so use this one with caution — better to use -passin instead.
bestie pls, don't put your password on the command line where everyone can see it 💀 use -passin, it's right there.
  • -passin arg — the key password source for key files and certificate PKCS#12 files. for the format of arg, see openssl-passphrase-options(1) 🎀
  • -selfsign — says the issued certificates are to be signed with the key that the certificate requests were signed with (the one given with -keyfile). any certificate requests signed with a different key get ignored. also: if -spkac, -ss_cert or -gencrl are given, -selfsign is ignored entirely 🙅‍♀️

a consequence of using -selfsign? the self-signed certificate shows up among the entries in the certificate database (see the configuration option database), and it uses the same serial number counter as all other certificates signed with the self-signed certificate. so it's in the mix fr fr 🦋

  • -notext — don't output the text form of a certificate to the output file. simple, clean, no notes 💅
  • -dateopt — specifies the date output format. the values are: rfc_822 and iso_8601. defaults to rfc_822. pick your fave ✨
  • -startdate date, -not_before date — lets you explicitly set the start date. the format of the date is YYMMDDHHMMSSZ (the same as an ASN1 UTCTime structure), or YYYYMMDDHHMMSSZ (the same as an ASN1 GeneralizedTime structure). in both formats, seconds SS and timezone Z must be present, no exceptions. alternatively you can just use "today" 🌸
  • -enddate date, -not_after date — lets you explicitly set the expiry date. same deal: format is YYMMDDHHMMSSZ (ASN1 UTCTime) or YYYYMMDDHHMMSSZ (ASN1 GeneralizedTime), and in both formats seconds SS and timezone Z must be present. you can also use "today". and heads up — this overrides the -days option 👑
  • -days arg — the number of days from today to certify the certificate for. regardless of the -not_before option, the days are always counted from today. when used together with -not_after/-startdate, the explicit expiry date takes precedence. soz, them's the rules 🎀
  • -md alg — the message digest to use. any digest supported by the openssl-dgst(1) command works. for signing algorithms that don't support a digest (i.e. Ed25519 and Ed448), any message digest that is set is ignored — ignored, bestie, not an error 💀 this option also applies to CRLs 🦋
  • -policy arg — defines the CA "policy" to use. it's a section in the configuration file that decides which fields should be mandatory or match the CA certificate. more info in the POLICY FORMAT section, go read it 💖
  • -msie_hack — ⚠️ this is a deprecated option, made to get this command working with extremely old versions of the IE certificate enrollment control "certenr3", which used UniversalStrings for almost everything. since that old control has various security bugs, its use is strongly discouraged. like, please don't 🙈
  • -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 instead. this is largely for compatibility with the older IE enrollment control, which would only accept certificates if their DNs matched the order of the request. not needed for Xenroll 🧚
  • -noemailDN — a certificate's DN can contain the EMAIL field if it's present in the request DN, but honestly good policy is 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's subject and set only in the, eventually present, extensions. the email_in_dn keyword in the configuration file can also enable this behaviour ✨
  • -batch — sets batch mode. in this mode no questions will be asked and all certificates will be certified automatically. zero small talk, all business 🔥
  • -extensions section — the configuration file section containing certificate extensions to add when a certificate is issued (defaults to x509_extensions unless the -extfile option is used). for the details of the extension section format, see the x509v3_config(5) manual page 🌈
  • -extfile file — an additional configuration file to read certificate extensions from (using the default section unless the -extensions option is also used) 🎀
  • -subj arg — supersedes the subject name given in the request. the arg must be formatted as /type0=value0/type1=value1/type2=.... special characters may be escaped by \ (backslash), and whitespace is retained. empty values are permitted, but the corresponding type won't be included in the resulting certificate. giving a single / leads to an empty sequence of RDNs (a NULL-DN), which is a whole situation 💀 multi-valued RDNs can be formed by placing a + character instead of a / between the AttributeValueAssertions (AVAs) that specify the members of the set. example, handily right here:
"/DC=org/DC=OpenSSL/DC=users/UID=123456+CN=John Doe"
  • -utf8 — makes field values be interpreted as UTF8 strings, whereas by default they're interpreted as ASCII. this means the field values — whether prompted from a terminal or obtained from a configuration file — must be valid UTF8 strings. no faking it 🦋
  • -create_serial — if reading the serial from the text file as specified in the configuration fails, this option creates a new random serial to be used as the next serial number. but lowkey, to get random serial numbers you should use the -rand_serial flag instead — this one should only be used for simple error-recovery. it's the emergency backup, not the main character 👑⭐
  • -rand_serial — generates a large random number to use as the serial number. this overrides any option or configuration to use a serial number file. bye serial file, hello chaos ✨
  • -multivalue-rdn — this option has been deprecated and has no effect. it's giving retired icon 💅
  • -rand files, -writerand file — see "Random State Options" in openssl(1) for details 🎀
  • -engine id — see "Engine Options" in openssl(1). ⚠️ heads up: this option is deprecated 🧚
  • -provider name, -provider-path path, -provparam [name:]key=value, -propquery propq — see "Provider Options" in openssl(1), provider(7), and property(7). the whole provider squad, all together 🌈💜

🎀 CRL OPTIONS 🎀

Okay bestie, this is the CRL corner of the page — certificate revocation list vibes, very “who’s still invited to the party” energy 💅

  • -gencrl — This option generates a CRL based on information in the index file.
  • -crl_lastupdate time — Lets you explicitly set the value of the CRL’s lastUpdate field; if this option is not present, the current time is used. Accepts times in YYMMDDHHMMSSZ format (the same as an ASN1 UTCTime structure) or YYYYMMDDHHMMSSZ format (the same as an ASN1 GeneralizedTime structure).
  • -crl_nextupdate time — Lets you explicitly set the value of the CRL’s nextUpdate field; if this option is present, any values given for -crldays, -crlhours and -crlsec are ignored. Accepts times in the same formats as -crl_lastupdate.
  • -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.
  • -crlsec num — The number of seconds before the next CRL is due.
  • -revoke filename — A filename containing a certificate to revoke.
  • -valid filename — A filename containing a certificate to add a Valid certificate entry.
  • -status serial — Displays the revocation status of the certificate with the specified serial number and exits.
  • -updatedb — Updates the database index to purge expired certificates.
  • -crl_reason reason — Revocation reason, where reason is one of: unspecified, keyCompromise, CACompromise, affiliationChanged, superseded, cessationOfOperation, certificateHold or removeFromCRL. The matching of reason is case insensitive. Setting any revocation reason will make the CRL v2.

In practice 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 certificateHold and the hold instruction to instruction which must be an OID. Although any OID can be used only holdInstructionNone (the use of which is discouraged by RFC2459) holdInstructionCallIssuer or holdInstructionReject will normally be used.
  • -crl_compromise time — This sets the revocation reason to keyCompromise and the compromise time to time. time should be in GeneralizedTime format that is YYYYMMDDHHMMSSZ.
  • -crl_CA_compromise time — This is the same as crl_compromise except the revocation reason is set to CACompromise.
  • -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 extensions and not CRL entry extensions. It should be noted that some software (for example Netscape) can’t handle V2 CRLs. See x509v3_config(5) manual page for details of the extension section format.

🌸 CONFIGURATION FILE OPTIONS 🌸

So here’s how this command finds its config-file section, bestie: the section of the configuration file containing options for this command 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 🫠

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.

  • oid_file — This specifies a file containing additional OBJECT IDENTIFIERS. Each line of the file should consist of the numerical form of the object identifier followed by whitespace then the short name followed by whitespace and finally the long name.
  • oid_section — 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.
  • new_certs_dir — The same as the -outdir command line option. It specifies 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 — At startup the specified file is loaded into the random number generator, and at exit 256 bytes will be written to it. (Note: Using a RANDFILE is not necessary anymore, see the "HISTORY" section.)
  • default_days — The same as the -days option. The number of days from today to certify 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.
  • 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. Mandatory except where the signing algorithm does not require a digest (i.e. Ed25519 and Ed448).
  • database — The text database file to use. Mandatory. This file must be present though initially it will be empty.
  • unique_subject — If the value yes is given, the valid certificate entries in the database must have unique subjects. if the value no is given, several valid certificate entries may have the exact same subject. The default value is yes, 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 no, especially if combined with the -selfsign command line option.

Note that it is valid in some circumstances for certificates to be created without any subject. In the case where there are multiple certificates without subjects this does not count as a duplicate.

  • 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.
  • crlnumber — 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.
  • x509_extensions — A fallback to the -extensions option.
  • crl_extensions — A fallback to the -crlexts option.
  • 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 certificate details when asking the user to confirm signing. 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 signature cannot be displayed because the certificate has not been signed at this point).

For convenience the values ca_default 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 strongly discouraged because it only displays fields mentioned in the policy section, mishandles multicharacter 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 certificate. 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.

🌈 POLICY FORMAT 🌈

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 😭

🦋 SPKAC FORMAT 🦋

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 openssl-spkac(1).

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 -out flag is used, but PEM format if sending to stdout or the -outdir flag is used. Slay ✨

💖 EXAMPLES 💖

okay bestie, real talk: these examples all assume you already set up the directory structure this command expects, and that the files already exist. 😭 Like, that whole ritual of making a CA cert and private key with openssl-req(1), plus a serial number file, plus an empty index file, all tucked into the right directories — that's on you, not on this page. 🙈

So if you're rolling with the sample config file below, you'd have created demoCA, demoCA/private and demoCA/newcerts. Your CA certificate goes to demoCA/cacert.pem, its private key goes to demoCA/private/cakey.pem, you make a file demoCA/serial containing, say, "01", and an empty index file demoCA/index.txt. Slay, now you're ready. ✨

Sign a certificate request:

openssl ca -in req.pem -out newcert.pem

Sign an SM2 certificate request:

openssl ca -in sm2.csr -out sm2.crt -md sm3 \
        -sigopt "distid:1234567812345678" \
        -vfyopt "distid:1234567812345678"

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 (heads up: the SPKAC line has been truncated for clarity, so don't come for me about it):

SPKAC=MIG0MGAwXDANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAANLADBIAkEAn7PDhCeV/xIxUg8V70YRxK2A5
CN=Steve Test
emailAddress=steve@openssl.org
0.OU=OpenSSL Group
1.OU=Another Group

And here's a sample configuration file with the sections this command actually cares about — copy it verbatim, bestie, no freestyling:

[ 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
#rand_serial    = yes                  # for random serial#'s
private_key    = $dir/private/cakey.pem# CA private key

default_days   = 365                   # how long to certify for
default_crl_days= 30                   # how long before next CRL
default_md     = sha256                # 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

🎀 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. iykyk 💅

/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

💀 RESTRICTIONS 💀

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. 😭 So like… don't corrupt it. Please.

V2 CRL features like delta CRLs are not currently supported. Not us, not yet. 🫠

Although several requests can be input and handled at once it is only possible to include one SPKAC or self-signed certificate. One. Singular. Don't push it. ✋

🙈 BUGS 🙈

This command is quirky and at times downright unfriendly. Fr fr, it said that, not me. 💀

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 way that "in-memory" means… in memory. 😭

This command really needs rewriting or the required functionality exposed at either a command or interface level so that a more user-friendly replacement could handle things properly. The script CA.pl helps 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 — lowkey it's giving chaos. 🌀

Canceling some commands by refusing to certify a certificate can create an empty file. That's it. That's the bug. An empty file. 🫶

⚠️ WARNINGS ⚠️

bestie. read this one. seriously. 👑

This command was originally meant as an example of how to do things in a CA. Its code does not have production quality. It was not supposed to be used as a full blown CA itself, nevertheless some people are using it for this purpose at least internally. When doing so, specific care should be taken to properly secure the private key(s) used for signing certificates. It is advisable to keep them in a secure HW storage such as a smart card or HSM and access them via a suitable engine or crypto provider. 🔐 protect the keys, protect the keys.

This command is effectively a single user command: no locking is done on the various files and attempts to run more than one openssl ca command on the same database can have unpredictable results. Ngl, unpredictable results is the villain origin story. 😭

The copy_extensions 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 copy_extensions value is set to copyall and the user does not spot this when the certificate is displayed then this will hand the requester a valid CA certificate. That's a whole security incident in a trench coat. 🚨 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 basicConstraints 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. Iconic. The parent said no. 🚫

🌈 HISTORY 🌈

Since OpenSSL 1.1.1, the program follows RFC5280. Specifically, certificate validity period (specified by any of -startdate, -enddate and -days) and CRL last/next update time (specified by any of -crl_lastupdate, -crl_nextupdate, -crldays, -crlhours and -crlsec) will be encoded as UTCTime if the dates are earlier than year 2049 (included), and as GeneralizedTime if the dates are in year 2050 or later. ⏳ cute little date-format glow-up.

OpenSSL 1.1.1 introduced a new random generator (CSPRNG) with an improved seeding mechanism. The new seeding mechanism makes it unnecessary to define a RANDFILE for saving and restoring randomness. This option is retained mainly for compatibility reasons. 🎲

The -section option was added in OpenSSL 3.0.0.

The -multivalue-rdn option has become obsolete in OpenSSL 3.0.0 and has no effect. 💀 rip, it's giving retired.

The -engine option was deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0.

Since OpenSSL 3.2, generated certificates bear X.509 version 3, and key identifier extensions are included by default. ✨ slay.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

openssl(1), openssl-req(1), openssl-spkac(1), openssl-x509(1), CA.pl(1), config(5), x509v3_config(5) — go read the whole friend group, they're all linked. 🫶

Copyright 2000-2024 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You can obtain a copy in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at <https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.

and that's the whole page bestie!! 🎀✨ thank you for coming to my ted talk, this was OPENSSL-CA(1ossl) version 3.5.0, dated 2026-09-25 — mwah, go sign some certs responsibly 💅💖🧚

📦 where this page comes from