X509_NEW(3ossl)

📦 version 3.5.0, in opensuse-leap 16.0

✨ NAME ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the OpenSSL X509_NEW(3ossl) page 💅 — this one is literally all about the X509 certificate ASN1 allocation and deallocation functions. The whole squad is X509_new, X509_new_ex, X509_free, X509_up_ref, X509_chain_up_ref, and OSSL_STACK_OF_X509_free 🎀

📜 SYNOPSIS 📜

#include <openssl/x509.h>

X509 *X509_new(void);
X509 *X509_new_ex(OSSL_LIB_CTX *libctx, const char *propq);
void X509_free(X509 *a);
int X509_up_ref(X509 *a);
STACK_OF(X509) *X509_chain_up_ref(STACK_OF(X509) *x);
void OSSL_STACK_OF_X509_free(STACK_OF(X509) *certs);

🧚 DESCRIPTION 🧚

The X509 ASN1 allocation routines allocate and free an X509 structure, which represents an X509 certificate. Iconic little lifecycle moment, no cap ✨

  • X509_new_ex() — allocates and initializes a X509 structure with a library context of libctx, property query of propq, and a reference count of 1. Many X509 functions such as X509_check_purpose() and X509_verify() use this library context to select which providers supply the fetched algorithms (SHA1 is used internally). This created X509 object can then be used when loading binary data using d2i_X509() 🦋
  • X509_new() — similar to X509_new_ex() but sets the library context and property query to NULL. This results in the default (NULL) library context being used for any X509 operations requiring algorithm fetches 💫
  • X509_free() — decrements the reference count of X509 structure a and frees it up if the reference count is zero. If the argument is NULL, nothing is done 🙈
  • X509_up_ref() — increments the reference count of a 👑
  • X509_chain_up_ref() — increases the reference count of all certificates in chain x and returns a copy of the stack, or an empty stack if a is NULL. yes bestie, the page says a there — I am simply reporting the lore 💀
  • OSSL_STACK_OF_X509_free() — deallocates the given list of pointers to certificates after calling X509_free() on all its elements. If the argument is NULL, nothing is done 🌸

🧠 NOTES 🧠

  • The function X509_up_ref() is useful if a certificate structure is being used by several different operations each of which will free it up after use: this avoids the need to duplicate the entire certificate structure 🫶
  • The function X509_chain_up_ref() doesn't just up the reference count of each certificate. It also returns a copy of the stack, using sk_X509_dup(), but it serves a similar purpose: the returned chain persists after the original has been freed 🔥

🔁 RETURN VALUES 🔁

  • If the allocation fails, X509_new() returns NULL and sets an error code that can be obtained by ERR_get_error(3). Otherwise it returns a pointer to the newly allocated structure 😭
  • X509_up_ref() returns 1 for success and 0 for failure ⭐
  • X509_chain_up_ref() returns a copy of the stack or NULL if an error occurred 💀
  • OSSL_STACK_OF_X509_free() has no return value 🎀

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

🕰️ HISTORY 🕰️

  • X509_new_ex() was added in OpenSSL 3.0 ✨
  • OSSL_STACK_OF_X509_free() was added in OpenSSL 3.2 🌈

Copyright 2002-2024 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 💖 this one is from OpenSSL 3.5.0, dated 2026-09-25 — slay, go forth and manage your X509 pointers responsibly 💅🎀

📦 where this page comes from