man > OPENSSL-PKCS12(1SSL)

OPENSSL-PKCS12(1SSL)                           OpenSSL                          OPENSSL-PKCS12(1SSL)

NAME
       openssl-pkcs12 - PKCS#12 file command

SYNOPSIS
       openssl pkcs12 [-help] [-passin arg] [-passout arg] [-password arg] [-twopass] [-in
       filename|uri] [-out filename] [-nokeys] [-nocerts] [-noout] [-legacy] [-engine id] [-provider
       name] [-provider-path path] [-propquery propq] [-rand files] [-writerand file]

       PKCS#12 input (parsing) options: [-info] [-nomacver] [-clcerts] [-cacerts]

       [-aes128] [-aes192] [-aes256] [-aria128] [-aria192] [-aria256] [-camellia128] [-camellia192]
       [-camellia256] [-des] [-des3] [-idea] [-noenc] [-nodes]

       PKCS#12 output (export) options:

       [-export] [-inkey filename|uri] [-certfile filename] [-passcerts arg] [-chain] [-untrusted
       filename] [-CAfile file] [-no-CAfile] [-CApath dir] [-no-CApath] [-CAstore uri] [-no-CAstore]
       [-name name] [-caname name] [-CSP name] [-LMK] [-keyex] [-keysig] [-keypbe cipher] [-certpbe
       cipher] [-descert] [-macalg digest] [-iter count] [-noiter] [-nomaciter] [-maciter] [-nomac]

DESCRIPTION
       This command allows PKCS#12 files (sometimes referred to as PFX files) to be created and
       parsed. PKCS#12 files are used by several programs including Netscape, MSIE and MS Outlook.

OPTIONS
       There are a lot of options the meaning of some depends of whether a PKCS#12 file is being
       created or parsed. By default a PKCS#12 file is parsed.  A PKCS#12 file can be created by
       using the -export option (see below).  The PKCS#12 export encryption and MAC options such as
       -certpbe and -iter and many further options such as -chain are relevant only with -export.
       Conversely, the options regarding encryption of private keys when outputting PKCS#12 input
       are relevant only when the -export option is not given.

       The default encryption algorithm is AES-256-CBC with PBKDF2 for key derivation.

       When encountering problems loading legacy PKCS#12 files that involve, for example,
       RC2-40-CBC, try using the -legacy option and, if needed, the -provider-path option.

       -help
           Print out a usage message.

       -passin arg
           The  password  source for the input, and for encrypting any private keys that are output.
           For more information about the format of arg see openssl-passphrase-options(1).

       -passout arg
           The password source for output files.

       -password arg
           With -export, -password is equivalent to -passout, otherwise it is equivalent to -passin.

       -twopass
           Prompt for separate integrity and encryption  passwords:  most  software  always  assumes
           these  are  the  same so this option will render such PKCS#12 files unreadable. Cannot be
           used in combination with the options -password, -passin if  importing  from  PKCS#12,  or
           -passout if exporting.

       -nokeys
           No private keys will be output.

       -nocerts
           No certificates will be output.

       -noout
           This option inhibits all credentials output, and so the input is just verified.

       -legacy
           Use  legacy  mode of operation and automatically load the legacy provider.  If OpenSSL is
           not installed system-wide, it is necessary to  also  use,  for  example,  "-provider-path
           ./providers" or to set the environment variable OPENSSL_MODULES to point to the directory
           where the providers can be found.

           In  the  legacy  mode,  the  default  algorithm  for certificate encryption is RC2_CBC or
           3DES_CBC depending on whether the RC2  cipher  is  enabled  in  the  build.  The  default
           algorithm for private key encryption is 3DES_CBC.  If the legacy option is not specified,
           then  the  legacy  provider  is  not loaded and the default encryption algorithm for both
           certificates and private keys is AES_256_CBC with PBKDF2 for key derivation.

       -engine id
           See "Engine Options" in openssl(1).  This option is deprecated.

       -provider name
       -provider-path path
       -propquery propq
           See "Provider Options" in openssl(1), provider(7), and property(7).

       -rand files, -writerand file
           See "Random State Options" in openssl(1) for details.

   PKCS#12 input (parsing) options
       -in filename|uri
           This specifies the input filename or URI.  Standard input is used  by  default.   Without
           the  -export  option  this  must  be PKCS#12 file to be parsed.  For use with the -export
           option see the "PKCS#12 output (export) options" section.

       -out filename
           The filename to write certificates and private keys to, standard output by default.  They
           are all written in PEM format.

       -info
           Output additional information about the  PKCS#12  file  structure,  algorithms  used  and
           iteration counts.

       -nomacver
           Don't attempt to verify the integrity MAC.

       -clcerts
           Only output client certificates (not CA certificates).

       -cacerts
           Only output CA certificates (not client certificates).

       -aes128, -aes192, -aes256
           Use AES to encrypt private keys before outputting.

       -aria128, -aria192, -aria256
           Use ARIA to encrypt private keys before outputting.

       -camellia128, -camellia192, -camellia256
           Use Camellia to encrypt private keys before outputting.

       -des
           Use DES to encrypt private keys before outputting.

       -des3
           Use triple DES to encrypt private keys before outputting.

       -idea
           Use IDEA to encrypt private keys before outputting.

       -noenc
           Don't encrypt private keys at all.

       -nodes
           This option is deprecated since OpenSSL 3.0; use -noenc instead.

   PKCS#12 output (export) options
       -export
           This option specifies that a PKCS#12 file will be created rather than parsed.

       -out filename
           This specifies filename to write the PKCS#12 file to. Standard output is used by default.

       -in filename|uri
           This  specifies  the input filename or URI.  Standard input is used by default.  With the
           -export option this is a file with certificates and a key, or a URI that refers to a  key
           accessed  via  an  engine.   The  order  of  credentials in a file doesn't matter but one
           private  key  and  its  corresponding  certificate  should  be  present.  If   additional
           certificates are present they will also be included in the PKCS#12 output file.

       -inkey filename|uri
           The  private key input for PKCS12 output.  If this option is not specified then the input
           file (-in argument) must contain a private key.  If no engine is used,  the  argument  is
           taken   as   a   file.    If   the   -engine  option  is  used  or  the  URI  has  prefix
           "org.openssl.engine:" then the rest of the URI is taken as key identifier for  the  given
           engine.

       -certfile filename
           An  input  file  with extra certificates to be added to the PKCS#12 output if the -export
           option is given.

       -passcerts arg
           The password source for certificate input such as -certfile  and  -untrusted.   For  more
           information about the format of arg see openssl-passphrase-options(1).

       -chain
           If  this  option  is  present then the certificate chain of the end entity certificate is
           built and included in the PKCS#12 output file.  The end entity certificate is  the  first
           one  read  from  the -in file if no key is given, else the first certificate matching the
           given key.  The standard CA trust store is used  for  chain  building,  as  well  as  any
           untrusted CA certificates given with the -untrusted option.

       -untrusted filename
           An  input  file  of  untrusted certificates that may be used for chain building, which is
           relevant only when a PKCS#12 file is created with  the  -export  option  and  the  -chain
           option  is given as well.  Any certificates that are actually part of the chain are added
           to the output.

       -CAfile file, -no-CAfile, -CApath dir, -no-CApath, -CAstore uri, -no-CAstore
           See "Trusted Certificate Options" in openssl-verification-options(1) for details.

       -name friendlyname
           This specifies the "friendly name" for the certificates and private  key.  This  name  is
           typically displayed in list boxes by software importing the file.

       -caname friendlyname
           This  specifies  the  "friendly  name"  for  other  certificates. This option may be used
           multiple times to specify names for all certificates in the order they  appear.  Netscape
           ignores friendly names on other certificates whereas MSIE displays them.

       -CSP name
           Write  name  as  a  Microsoft  CSP  name.   The  password  source  for the input, and for
           encrypting any private keys that are output.  For more information about  the  format  of
           arg see openssl-passphrase-options(1).

       -LMK
           Add the "Local Key Set" identifier to the attributes.

       -keyex|-keysig
           Specifies  that  the  private  key  is to be used for key exchange or just signing.  This
           option is only interpreted by MSIE and  similar  MS  software.  Normally  "export  grade"
           software  will  only  allow  512  bit  RSA  keys  to  be used for encryption purposes but
           arbitrary length keys for signing. The -keysig option marks the  key  for  signing  only.
           Signing  only keys can be used for S/MIME signing, authenticode (ActiveX control signing)
           and SSL client authentication, however, due to a bug only MSIE 5.0 and later support  the
           use of signing only keys for SSL client authentication.

       -keypbe alg, -certpbe alg
           These  options allow the algorithm used to encrypt the private key and certificates to be
           selected. Any PKCS#5 v1.5 or PKCS#12 PBE algorithm name can be used (see "NOTES"  section
           for  more information). If a cipher name (as output by "openssl list -cipher-algorithms")
           is specified then it is used  with  PKCS#5  v2.0.  For  interoperability  reasons  it  is
           advisable to only use PKCS#12 algorithms.

           Special value "NONE" disables encryption of the private key and certificates.

       -descert
           Encrypt  the  certificates  using  triple  DES.  By  default  the  private  key  and  the
           certificates are encrypted using AES-256-CBC unless the  '-legacy'  option  is  used.  If
           '-descert' is used with the '-legacy' then both, the private key and the certificates are
           encrypted using triple DES.

       -macalg digest
           Specify the MAC digest algorithm. If not included SHA256 will be used.

       -iter count
           This  option  specifies  the  iteration count for the encryption key and MAC. The default
           value is 2048.

           To discourage attacks by using large dictionaries of common passwords the algorithm  that
           derives  keys  from  passwords  can  have an iteration count applied to it: this causes a
           certain part of the algorithm to be repeated and slows it down. The MAC is used to  check
           the  file  integrity  but  since  it will normally have the same password as the keys and
           certificates it could also be attacked.

       -noiter, -nomaciter
           By default both encryption and MAC iteration counts are set to 2048, using these  options
           the  MAC  and  encryption  iteration  counts can be set to 1, since this reduces the file
           security you should not use these options  unless  you  really  have  to.  Most  software
           supports  both  MAC  and  encryption  iteration  counts.   MSIE  4.0  doesn't support MAC
           iteration counts so it needs the -nomaciter option.

       -maciter
           This option is included for compatibility with previous versions, it used to be needed to
           use MAC iterations counts but they are now used by default.

       -nomac
           Do not attempt to provide the MAC integrity. This can be useful with the FIPS provider as
           the PKCS12 MAC requires PKCS12KDF which is not an approved FIPS algorithm and  cannot  be
           supported by the FIPS provider.

NOTES
       Although  there  are a large number of options most of them are very rarely used. For PKCS#12
       file parsing only -in and -out need to be used for PKCS#12 file creation  -export  and  -name
       are also used.

       If  none of the -clcerts, -cacerts or -nocerts options are present then all certificates will
       be output in the order they appear in the input PKCS#12 files. There is no guarantee that the
       first certificate present is the one corresponding to  the  private  key.   Certain  software
       which  tries  to  get  a  private key and the corresponding certificate might assume that the
       first certificate in the file is the one corresponding to the private key, but that  may  not
       always be the case.  Using the -clcerts option will solve this problem by only outputting the
       certificate  corresponding  to the private key. If the CA certificates are required then they
       can be output to a separate file using  the  -nokeys  -cacerts  options  to  just  output  CA
       certificates.

       The  -keypbe and -certpbe algorithms allow the precise encryption algorithms for private keys
       and certificates to be specified. Normally the defaults are fine  but  occasionally  software
       can't  handle  triple DES encrypted private keys, then the option -keypbe PBE-SHA1-RC2-40 can
       be used to reduce the private key encryption to 40 bit RC2. A  complete  description  of  all
       algorithms is contained in openssl-pkcs8(1).

       Prior  1.1  release  passwords  containing non-ASCII characters were encoded in non-compliant
       manner, which limited  interoperability,  in  first  hand  with  Windows.  But  switching  to
       standard-compliant  password  encoding poses problem accessing old data protected with broken
       encoding. For this reason even legacy encodings is attempted when reading the  data.  If  you
       use  PKCS#12  files  in  production  application you are advised to convert the data, because
       implemented heuristic approach is not MT-safe, its  sole  goal  is  to  facilitate  the  data
       upgrade with this command.

EXAMPLES
       Parse a PKCS#12 file and output it to a PEM file:

        openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -out file.pem

       Output only client certificates to a file:

        openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -clcerts -out file.pem

       Don't encrypt the private key:

        openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -out file.pem -noenc

       Print some info about a PKCS#12 file:

        openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -info -noout

       Print some info about a PKCS#12 file in legacy mode:

        openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -info -noout -legacy

       Create a PKCS#12 file from a PEM file that may contain a key and certificates:

        openssl pkcs12 -export -in file.pem -out file.p12 -name "My PSE"

       Include some extra certificates:

        openssl pkcs12 -export -in file.pem -out file.p12 -name "My PSE" \
         -certfile othercerts.pem

       Export  a  PKCS#12  file  with  data  from a certificate PEM file and from a further PEM file
       containing a key, with default algorithms as in the legacy provider:

        openssl pkcs12 -export -in cert.pem -inkey key.pem -out file.p12 -legacy

SEE ALSO
       openssl(1), openssl-pkcs8(1), ossl_store-file(7)

HISTORY
       The -engine option was deprecated in OpenSSL  3.0.   The  -nodes  option  was  deprecated  in
       OpenSSL 3.0, too; use -noenc instead.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright 2000-2022 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>.

3.0.13                                       2026-07-29                         OPENSSL-PKCS12(1SSL)
OPENSSL-PKCS12(1SSL)
NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS
-certpbe and -iter and many further options such as -chain are relevant only with -export. -help -passin arg -passout arg -password arg -twopass -nokeys -nocerts -noout -legacy -engine id -provider name -provider-path path -propquery propq -rand files, -writerand file PKCS#12 input (parsing) options -in filename|uri -out filename -info -nomacver -clcerts -cacerts -aes128, -aes192, -aes256 -aria128, -aria192, -aria256 -camellia128, -camellia192, -camellia256 -des -des3 -idea -noenc -nodes PKCS#12 output (export) options -export -out filename -in filename|uri -inkey filename|uri -certfile filename -passcerts arg -chain -untrusted filename -CAfile file, -no-CAfile, -CApath dir, -no-CApath, -CAstore uri, -no-CAstore -name friendlyname -caname friendlyname -CSP name -LMK -keyex|-keysig -keypbe alg, -certpbe alg -descert -macalg digest -iter count -noiter, -nomaciter -maciter -nomac
NOTES EXAMPLES SEE ALSO HISTORY COPYRIGHT

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