OPENSSL-ERRSTR(1ossl)

📦 version 3.5.0, in opensuse-leap 16.0

💅 openssl-errstr — like, the whole manual, but make it make sense

okay bestie, so the manual name for this one is openssl-errstr — and it's genuinely one of the most underrated little commands in the whole toolkit. Let's get into it. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

openssl-errstr — lookup error codes 🔍

That's it. That's the whole job. You give it a number, it tells you what the number means. Iconic, honestly.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

openssl errstr [-help] error_code...

yep, that's the shape of it — the command, maybe -help, and then one or more error codes. Multiple. You can pass a bunch. Slay. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so here's the situation, and it's kind of a sad one 😭 — sometimes an application just… won't load error message texts. Like it's out here with the vibes but not the words. So the only thing you get is the numerical form. Just numbers. No caption. No context. Nothing.

That's where this command comes in and honestly it's giving main character energy ✨ — you hand it the hex code, and it displays the meaning of that hex code. Translation service for numbers, basically.

and here's the part you actually need to remember, bestie, because it's a whole thing: the hex code is the hex digits after the second colon. Not the first, not the third — the second. iykyk. 🎀

So like, look at your error string, count your colons, grab the bit after the second one, and feed that to openssl errstr. Boom. Done. 💖

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -help — displays a usage message. that's the whole option list. one (1) option. she's lowkey minimal and we respect it. 👑

💜 EXAMPLES 💜

okay so picture this error code right here:

27594:error:2006D080:lib(32)::reason(128)::107:

now, remember the rule — hex digits after the second colon 🫶 — so we're grabbing 2006D080, and it can be displayed with:

openssl errstr 2006D080

and that produces the error message:

error:2006D080:BIO routines::no such file

no cap, that's the whole glow-up ✨ number goes in, actual human-readable meaning comes out. ate and left no crumbs. 🔥

Copyright 2004-2020 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>.

fr fr read the license before you go doing stuff — it's the whole "may not use this file except in compliance" situation and we're being so serious about it. 💀

and that's the page, bestie! 🧚 this was OpenSSL 3.5.0, dated 2026-09-25 — go forth and decode your hex codes, you absolute icon 💖🌸🦋

📦 where this page comes from