OCSP_RESP_FIND_STATUS(3SSL)

📦

version 4.0.3 · 14 versions

💅 OCSP_RESP_FIND_STATUS 💅

okay so bestie, we're in 3SSL territory — this is the OpenSSL OCSP response utility functions page, and it's genuinely such a useful little grab-bag. it's giving "one page, whole toolkit." let's go 🦋

🌸 NAME 🌸

OCSP_resp_find_status, OCSP_resp_count, OCSP_resp_get0, OCSP_resp_find, OCSP_single_get0_status, OCSP_resp_get0_produced_at, OCSP_resp_get0_signature, OCSP_resp_get0_tbs_sigalg, OCSP_resp_get0_respdata, OCSP_resp_get0_certs, OCSP_resp_get0_signer, OCSP_resp_get0_id, OCSP_resp_get1_id, OCSP_check_validity, OCSP_basic_verify — all of these are the OCSP response utility functions. one big friend group ✨

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <openssl/ocsp.h>

int OCSP_resp_find_status(OCSP_BASICRESP *bs, OCSP_CERTID *id, int *status,
                          int *reason,
                          ASN1_GENERALIZEDTIME **revtime,
                          ASN1_GENERALIZEDTIME **thisupd,
                          ASN1_GENERALIZEDTIME **nextupd);

int OCSP_resp_count(OCSP_BASICRESP *bs);
OCSP_SINGLERESP *OCSP_resp_get0(OCSP_BASICRESP *bs, int idx);
int OCSP_resp_find(OCSP_BASICRESP *bs, OCSP_CERTID *id, int last);
int OCSP_single_get0_status(OCSP_SINGLERESP *single, int *reason,
                            ASN1_GENERALIZEDTIME **revtime,
                            ASN1_GENERALIZEDTIME **thisupd,
                            ASN1_GENERALIZEDTIME **nextupd);

const ASN1_GENERALIZEDTIME *OCSP_resp_get0_produced_at(
                            const OCSP_BASICRESP* single);

const ASN1_OCTET_STRING *OCSP_resp_get0_signature(const OCSP_BASICRESP *bs);
const X509_ALGOR *OCSP_resp_get0_tbs_sigalg(const OCSP_BASICRESP *bs);
const OCSP_RESPDATA *OCSP_resp_get0_respdata(const OCSP_BASICRESP *bs);
const STACK_OF(X509) *OCSP_resp_get0_certs(const OCSP_BASICRESP *bs);

int OCSP_resp_get0_signer(OCSP_BASICRESP *bs, X509 **signer,
                          STACK_OF(X509) *extra_certs);

int OCSP_resp_get0_id(const OCSP_BASICRESP *bs,
                      const ASN1_OCTET_STRING **pid,
                      const X509_NAME **pname);
int OCSP_resp_get1_id(const OCSP_BASICRESP *bs,
                      ASN1_OCTET_STRING **pid,
                      X509_NAME **pname);

int OCSP_check_validity(ASN1_GENERALIZEDTIME *thisupd,
                        ASN1_GENERALIZEDTIME *nextupd,
                        long sec, long maxsec);

int OCSP_basic_verify(OCSP_BASICRESP *bs, const STACK_OF(X509) *certs,
                     X509_STORE *st, unsigned long flags);

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

OCSP_resp_find_status() goes digging through bs looking for an OCSP response for id. if it finds one, it hands you back the fields of that response in *status, *reason, *revtime, *thisupd and *nextupd. 💖

the *status value is gonna be one of these three besties:

V_OCSP_CERTSTATUS_GOOD
V_OCSP_CERTSTATUS_REVOKED
V_OCSP_CERTSTATUS_UNKNOWN

and listen — the *reason and *revtime fields are only set if the status is V_OCSP_CERTSTATUS_REVOKED. if it is set, *reason gets set to the revocation reason, which will be one of:

OCSP_REVOKED_STATUS_NOSTATUS
OCSP_REVOKED_STATUS_UNSPECIFIED
OCSP_REVOKED_STATUS_KEYCOMPROMISE
OCSP_REVOKED_STATUS_CACOMPROMISE
OCSP_REVOKED_STATUS_AFFILIATIONCHANGED
OCSP_REVOKED_STATUS_SUPERSEDED
OCSP_REVOKED_STATUS_CESSATIONOFOPERATION
OCSP_REVOKED_STATUS_CERTIFICATEHOLD
OCSP_REVOKED_STATUS_REMOVEFROMCRL

okay?? memorize them, there will be a quiz 😭

OCSP_resp_count() just tells you how many OCSP_SINGLERESP structures are vibing inside bs. headcount, basically. 💅

OCSP_resp_get0() returns the OCSP_SINGLERESP structure in bs at index idx, and idx runs from 0 to OCSP_resp_count(bs) - 1. no skipping the line 🔥

OCSP_resp_find() searches bs for id and returns the index of the first matching entry after last — or starting from the beginning if last is -1.

OCSP_single_get0_status() extracts the fields of single into *reason, *revtime, *thisupd and *nextupd. ✨

OCSP_resp_get0_produced_at() extracts the producedAt field from the single response bs. 🕐

OCSP_resp_get0_signature() returns the signature from bs.

OCSP_resp_get0_tbs_sigalg() returns the signatureAlgorithm from bs.

OCSP_resp_get0_respdata() returns the tbsResponseData from bs.

OCSP_resp_get0_certs() returns any certificates included in bs. 📜

OCSP_resp_get0_signer() attempts to retrieve the certificate that directly signed bs. here's the tea though: the OCSP protocol does not require that this certificate is included in the certs field of the response, so you can supply additional certificates via the extra_certs argument if the certificates that may have signed the response are known to you via some out-of-band mechanism. 🫶

OCSP_resp_get0_id() gets the responder id of bs. if the responder ID is a name then <*pname> is set to the name and *pid is set to NULL. if the responder ID is by key ID then *pid is set to the key ID and *pname is set to NULL. either/or, never both 👑

OCSP_resp_get1_id() is the same as OCSP_resp_get0_id() but — plot twist — it leaves ownership of *pid and *pname with the caller, who is responsible for freeing them unless the function returns 0. so yeah, you're on cleanup duty now 🧹

OCSP_check_validity() checks the validity of its thisupd and nextupd arguments, which will typically be obtained from OCSP_resp_find_status() or OCSP_single_get0_status(). if sec is nonzero it indicates how many seconds of leeway should be allowed in the check. if maxsec is positive it indicates the maximum age of thisupd in seconds. (clock skew said "not today bestie" 🙈)

OCSP_basic_verify() checks that the basic response message bs is correctly signed and that the signer certificate can be validated. it takes st as the trusted store and certs as a set of untrusted intermediate certificates.

here's the whole sequence, no cap:

first it tries to find the signer certificate of the response in certs.
then it searches the certificates the responder may have included in bs — unless flags contains OCSP_NOINTERN.
it fails if the signer certificate cannot be found. 💀
next, unless flags contains OCSP_NOSIGS, the function checks the signature of bs and fails on error.
then the function already returns success if flags contains OCSP_NOVERIFY, or if the signer certificate was found in certs and flags contains OCSP_TRUSTOTHER.
otherwise the function continues by validating the signer certificate. if flags contains OCSP_PARTIAL_CHAIN it takes intermediate CA certificates in st as trust anchors. for more details, see the description of X509_V_FLAG_PARTIAL_CHAIN in "VERIFICATION FLAGS" in X509_VERIFY_PARAM_set_flags(3).
if flags contains OCSP_NOCHAIN it ignores all certificates in certs and in bs, else it takes them as untrusted intermediate CA certificates and uses them for constructing the validation path for the signer certificate.
certificate revocation status checks using CRLs is disabled during path validation if the signer certificate contains the id-pkix-ocsp-no-check extension.
after successful path validation the function returns success if the OCSP_NOCHECKS flag is set.
otherwise it verifies that the signer certificate meets the OCSP issuer criteria including potential delegation. if this does not succeed and the OCSP_NOEXPLICIT flag is not set, the function checks for explicit trust for OCSP signing in the root CA certificate.

that's a whole journey, but every step is listed. periodt 🔥

🦋 RETURN VALUES 🦋

OCSP_resp_find_status() returns 1 if id is found in bs and 0 otherwise.
OCSP_resp_count() returns the total number of OCSP_SINGLERESP fields in bs or -1 on error.
OCSP_resp_get0() returns a pointer to an OCSP_SINGLERESP structure or NULL on error, such as idx being out of range.
OCSP_resp_find() returns the index of id in bs (which may be 0) or -1 on error, such as when id was not found.
OCSP_single_get0_status() returns the status of single or -1 if an error occurred.
OCSP_resp_get0_produced_at() returns the producedAt field from bs.
OCSP_resp_get0_signature() returns the signature from bs.
OCSP_resp_get0_tbs_sigalg() returns the signatureAlgorithm field from bs.
OCSP_resp_get0_respdata() returns the tbsResponseData field from bs.
OCSP_resp_get0_certs() returns any certificates included in bs.
OCSP_resp_get0_signer() returns 1 if the signing certificate was located, or 0 if not found or on error.
OCSP_resp_get0_id() and OCSP_resp_get1_id() return 1 on success, 0 on failure.
OCSP_check_validity() returns 1 if thisupd and nextupd are valid time values and the current time + sec is not before thisupd and, if maxsec >= 0, the current time - maxsec is not past nextupd. otherwise it returns 0 to indicate an error.
OCSP_basic_verify() returns 1 on success, 0 on verification not successful, or -1 on a fatal error such as malloc failure. 💀

🍓 NOTES 🍓

applications will typically call OCSP_resp_find_status() using the certificate ID of interest and then check its validity using OCSP_check_validity(). they can then take appropriate action based on the status of the certificate. that's literally the whole workflow, bestie — find, validate, react. ✨

an OCSP response for a certificate contains thisUpdate and nextUpdate fields. normally the current time should be between these two values. to account for clock skew the maxsec field can be set to nonzero in OCSP_check_validity(). some responders do not set the nextUpdate field, and this would otherwise mean an ancient response would be considered valid: the maxsec parameter to OCSP_check_validity() can be used to limit the permitted age of responses. 🔥

⚠️ BIG WARNING, DO NOT SKIP: the values written to *revtime, *thisupd and *nextupd by OCSP_resp_find_status() and OCSP_single_get0_status() are internal pointers which MUST NOT be freed up by the calling application. do not free them. i'm serious. 🫶 any or all of these parameters can be set to NULL if their value is not required.

go read those next, iykyk 📚

🌈 COPYRIGHT 🌈

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 was version 4.0.3, dated 2026-09-29, from the OCSP_RESP_FIND_STATUS(3SSL) manual. slay, stay valid, and don't free those internal pointers ✨👑🦋

📦 where this page comes from

ubuntu stonking: libssl-doc 4.0.3-1ubuntu1 · Apache-2.0
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on 2026-11-03: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms

OCSP_RESP_FIND_STATUS(3SSL)