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Under GNU General Public License
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CA.PL(1SSL) OpenSSL CA.PL(1SSL)
NAME
CA.pl - friendlier interface for OpenSSL certificate programs
SYNOPSIS
CA.pl -? | -h | -help
CA.pl -newcert | -newreq | -newreq-nodes | -xsign | -sign | -signCA | -signcert | -crl |
-newca [-extra-cmd parameter]
CA.pl -pkcs12 [certname]
CA.pl -verify certfile ...
CA.pl -revoke certfile [reason]
DESCRIPTION
The CA.pl script is a perl script that supplies the relevant command line arguments to the
openssl(1) command for some common certificate operations. It is intended to simplify the
process of certificate creation and management by the use of some simple options.
The script is intended as a simple front end for the openssl(1) program for use by a
beginner. Its behaviour isn't always what is wanted. For more control over the behaviour
of the certificate commands call the openssl(1) command directly.
Most of the filenames mentioned below can be modified by editing the CA.pl script.
Under some environments it may not be possible to run the CA.pl script directly (for
example Win32) and the default configuration file location may be wrong. In this case the
command:
perl -S CA.pl
can be used and the OPENSSL_CONF environment variable can be set to point to the correct
path of the configuration file.
OPTIONS
-?, -h, -help
Prints a usage message.
-newcert
Creates a new self signed certificate. The private key is written to the file
newkey.pem and the request written to the file newreq.pem. Invokes openssl-req(1).
-newreq
Creates a new certificate request. The private key is written to the file newkey.pem
and the request written to the file newreq.pem. Executes openssl-req(1) under the
hood.
-newreq-nodes
Is like -newreq except that the private key will not be encrypted. Uses
openssl-req(1).
-newca
Creates a new CA hierarchy for use with the ca program (or the -signcert and -xsign
options). The user is prompted to enter the filename of the CA certificates (which
should also contain the private key) or by hitting ENTER details of the CA will be
prompted for. The relevant files and directories are created in a directory called
demoCA in the current directory. Uses openssl-req(1) and openssl-ca(1).
If the demoCA directory already exists then the -newca command will not overwrite it
and will do nothing. This can happen if a previous call using the -newca option
terminated abnormally. To get the correct behaviour delete the directory if it already
exists.
-pkcs12
Create a PKCS#12 file containing the user certificate, private key and CA certificate.
It expects the user certificate and private key to be in the file newcert.pem and the
CA certificate to be in the file demoCA/cacert.pem, it creates a file newcert.p12.
This command can thus be called after the -sign option. The PKCS#12 file can be
imported directly into a browser. If there is an additional argument on the command
line it will be used as the "friendly name" for the certificate (which is typically
displayed in the browser list box), otherwise the name "My Certificate" is used.
Delegates work to openssl-pkcs12(1).
-sign, -signcert, -xsign
Calls the openssl-ca(1) command to sign a certificate request. It expects the request
to be in the file newreq.pem. The new certificate is written to the file newcert.pem
except in the case of the -xsign option when it is written to standard output.
-signCA
This option is the same as the -sign option except it uses the configuration file
section v3_ca and so makes the signed request a valid CA certificate. This is useful
when creating intermediate CA from a root CA. Extra params are passed to
openssl-ca(1).
-signcert
This option is the same as -sign except it expects a self signed certificate to be
present in the file newreq.pem. Extra params are passed to openssl-x509(1) and
openssl-ca(1).
-crl
Generate a CRL. Executes openssl-ca(1).
-revoke certfile [reason]
Revoke the certificate contained in the specified certfile. An optional reason may be
specified, and must be one of: unspecified, keyCompromise, CACompromise,
affiliationChanged, superseded, cessationOfOperation, certificateHold, or
removeFromCRL. Leverages openssl-ca(1).
-verify
Verifies certificates against the CA certificate for demoCA. If no certificates are
specified on the command line it tries to verify the file newcert.pem. Invokes
openssl-verify(1).
-extra-cmd parameter
For each option extra-cmd, pass parameter to the openssl(1) sub-command with the same
name as cmd, if that sub-command is invoked. For example, if openssl-req(1) is
invoked, the parameter given with -extra-req will be passed to it. For multi-word
parameters, either repeat the option or quote the parameters so it looks like one word
to your shell. See the individual command documentation for more information.
EXAMPLES
Create a CA hierarchy:
CA.pl -newca
Complete certificate creation example: create a CA, create a request, sign the request and
finally create a PKCS#12 file containing it.
CA.pl -newca
CA.pl -newreq
CA.pl -sign
CA.pl -pkcs12 "My Test Certificate"
ENVIRONMENT
The environment variable OPENSSL may be used to specify the name of the OpenSSL program.
It can be a full pathname, or a relative one.
The environment variable OPENSSL_CONFIG may be used to specify a configuration option and
value to the req and ca commands invoked by this script. It's value should be the option
and pathname, as in "-config /path/to/conf-file".
SEE ALSO
openssl(1), openssl-x509(1), openssl-ca(1), openssl-req(1), openssl-pkcs12(1), config(5)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2000-2021 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>.
3.0.2 2025-09-18 CA.PL(1SSL)
Generated by $Id: phpMan.php,v 4.55 2007/09/05 04:42:51 chedong Exp $ Author: Che Dong
On Apache
Under GNU General Public License
2025-11-21 17:06 @216.73.216.130 CrawledBy Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)