## Table of Contents

1. Certificate Handling Overview

1.1 Set Certificate Cache
1.2 Add Certificate File
1.3 Set Certifying Authority Certificate Location

2. Certificate Verification Process

2.0.1 X509_NAME_oneline

3. Generating and Signing Certificates

3.1 genrsa
3.2 verify
3.3 rsa
3.4 x509
3.5 ssleay
3.6 req

4. Generating RSA certificate requests
5. Generating "dummy" certificates

## 1. Certificate Handling Overview

By default we store the all the certificates in either files or series of hashed directories (where the hash is generated from the subject name appended with a unique number to handle any name clashes).

The format of the certificates can be any of:

- DER - binary DER encoding

- PEM - base64 PEM encoding

By default the code we are shipping uses the directory and PEM-style encoding for the certificates contained therein.

### 1.1 Set Certificate Cache

     X509_add_cert_dir(char *dir,int type)

dir can be either a single directory or a colon separated list of directories. type must be one of

- X509_FILETYPE_PEM

- X509_FILETYPE_DER

### 1.2 Add Certificate File

To add a certificate:

     X509_add_cert_file(char *file,int type)

file contains the certificate. type must be one of

- X509_FILETYPE_PEM

- X509_FILETYPE_DER

For X509_FILETYPE_PEM the file can contain multiple certificates.

### 1.3 Set Certifying Authority Certificate Location

As part of the general struture used, you can specify the location from which to load "trusted" certifying authority certificates. The cerficates can either be in a single file or in a "hashed" directory.

All certificates loaded via this interface must be in PEM format as this function simply calls X509_add_cert_dir() and X509_add_cert_file().

     X509_load_verify_locations(char *file,char *dir)

Either of file or dir can be NULL.

The standard behaviour of using the locations as specified in rsa/location.h can be activated by using

     SSL_set_default_verify_paths(ssl_con)
     (which is actually) X509_set_default_verify_paths(ssl_ctx->cert)

This loads certificates from the "standard" locations and from whatever the standard environment variables point to.

The default values in rsa/location.h are:

     #define SSL_CERT_DIR           "/usr/local/ssl/certs"
     #define SSL_CERT_FILE  "/usr/local/ssl/cert.pem"

     #define SSL_CERT_DIR_ENV       "SSL_CERT_DIR"
     #define SSL_CERT_FILE_ENV      "SSL_CERT_FILE"

Note: the verify and x509 utility programs use X509_set_default_verify_paths() so if you want different behaviour you will have to change the calls in those programs.

## 2. Certificate Verification Process

Certificate verification is controlled by ssl_set_verify. This sets the verify mode and the optional callback function.

     void ssl_set_verify(SSL *s,int mode, int (*callback)() )

Supported modes are:

- SSL_VERIFY_NONE

- SSL_VERIFY_PEER

- SSL_VERIFY_FAIL_IF_NO_PEER_CERT

If SSL_VERIFY_PEER then the server will request a certificate from the client during initial protocol negotiation. If the client does not provide one and SSL_FAIL_IF_NO_PEER_CERT is being used then the verification process will fail and the caller will be returned an error code from ssl_accept().

From the client point of view, if SSL_VERIFY_PEER is set then the client will verify the server's certificate.

The callback function can be used to control the entire certificate hierarchy trust policy. It is called after each attempted verification of a certificate - either because the certificate was received or a certificate was referenced during traversal of the Certifying Authority hierarchy.

     int (*callback)(int ok,X509 *subj_cert,X509 *issuer_cert,
                     int depth,int errorcode)

ok is set to 1 if the X509 certificate is syntactically "valid" and has been verified (i.e. the checksum is okay, date range correct, etc). The callback function can return either 1 to accept, or 0 to reject - i.e. the return value would have been ok if there was no callback function registered.

subj_cert is the certificate of the subject

issuer_cert is the certificate of the issuer (the signer of the subjects certificate). It may be NULL (if there is an error).

depth is the recursion depth. A depth of 1 indicates that you are attempting to verify the issuer of the subjects certificate. If you do not wish to traverse the CA hierarchy simply return 1 when the depth is greater than or equal to 1.

errorcode is one of the VERIFY_ERR_ defines from rsa/X509.h. VERIFY_OK indicates that there is no error.

TODO: There are lots of X509 interface routines that you will have to look at if you actually want to do anything useful with certificates :-)

Have a look at rsa/verify.c for a decent example usage of this stuff.

The following are probably of the most imediate use in the callback function:

#### 2.0.1 X509_NAME_oneline

To turn a X509_NAME encoding into a "normal" string:

     char *X509_NAME_oneline(X509_NAME *name)

It is the responsibility of the caller to free() the returned string.

## 3. Generating and Signing Certificates

There are five programs in the rsa directory that are required for generating and managing certificates.

The following two environment variables influence the behaviour of the certificate verification process in verify and x509.

- SSL_CERT_DIR

- SSL_CERT_FILE

It is considered a good idea for all implementations to standarise on usage of these environment variables.

### 3.1 genrsa

Used to generate RSA private keys.

     genrsa [-des|-idea] [-rand file:file:file] [-F4|-3] [numbits] > key

Number of bits to make the RSA private key, default of 512. writes to stdout when finished, in PEM format. If the des or idea option are used you will be prompted for a pass phrase.

The random number generator can be seeded with a series of files. Each file will have the stat(2) information and the contents of the complete file used.

The public exponent can be set using -F4 or -3 if you desire to deviate from the SSLeay default of F4.

### 3.2 verify

To verify that a certificate is "okay"

     verify [-CApath path] [-CAfile filename] file1 [file2 ...]

verify will attempt to verify a certificate via either looking through a directory or simply a single file - this behaviour is compiled into the program and you really should decide what your "site" default for this is.

verify requires the arguments to be in PEM format and the lookup files also must be in PEM format.

You may want to tailor this program (or rsa/location.h as it has hard coded paths for the location for the certificates used to verify. Note that you can use the environment variables SSL_CERT_DIR and SSL_CERT_FILE or the command line args CApath and CAfile to influence the location used.

### 3.3 rsa

Convert keys from one format to another - i.e. rsa is a filter.

     rsa [-des|-idea] [-inform format] [-outform format]
         [-in infile] [-out outfile]

Terse help is given on error. When a PEM format file is encountered you will be prompted for the pass phrase to encrypt/decrypt the private key if the des or idea options are used.

Note: rsa can be used to change pass phrases by simply running

     rsa -des < in >out

### 3.4 x509

x509 is the real key to the signing process and to managing certificates.

     x509
         [-inform format]
         [-outform format]
         [-keyform format]
         [-CAform format]
         [-CAkeyform format]
         [-in input-filename]
         [-out output-filename]
         [-signkey self-signing-key-filename]
         [-CA certifying-authority-certificate-filename]
         [-CAkey certifying-authority-key-filename]
         [-CAcreateserial]
         [-RSAreq private-key-filename]
         [-days]
         [-CAserial filename]

     Output options:
         [-serial]     prints the serial number
         [-hash]       prints the hash vaulue used to dir lookups
         [-subject]    prints the cert's subject DN
         [-issuer]     prints the cert's issuer DN
         [-startdate]  prints the cert's notBefore field
         [-enddate]    prints the cert's notAfter field
         [-noout]      do not display the certificate

If a given input or output file format is not specified it defaults to PEM.

If the CAkey is not specified and the CAform is PEM (which is the default) then it is assumed that the CAkey is also stored in the CA certificate file.

The Output options generate output in the order in which they are specified on the command line.

If -signkey is set, the certificate has the public component of the key inserted and is signed with the private key. This is required so the certificate can be sent to a CA for certifying.

If the -CA flag is present, the certificate is certified/signed by the CAkey and has the issuer copied from the CA certificate. The date is also set and a file of the form CAkey filename.serial is updated and the new serial number is put in the certificate. Unless CAcreateserial is set the file will not be created or edited unless it is in the correct format.

The -signkey and -CA commands are processed in the same order as their command line arguments. Note that this means you will be prompted for the pass phrase for each in the order in which you specified them on the command line. The prompt however does indicate which pass phrase is required so you should read it.

     x509 -noout -subject -issuer -enddate < filename

### 3.5 ssleay

A convenience application that has all the little applications included in it - handy to have in all environments.

Run it and type help for details on how to use it.

### 3.6 req

req is used to generate certificate requests (for sending to your top-level CA for signing - perhaps VeriSign). req also is setup as a convenience utility for managing private key creation.

     req -newkey 512 -new  > MINCOM.pem

To 'verify' that the checksum of a certificate request is ok:

     req -in MINCOM.pem -verify -noout

## 4. Generating RSA certificate requests

This needs more documentation, however as it stands the procedure is fairly straight forward.

     # generate your private+public key
     req -newkey 512 -new  > MINCOM.pem

     # check that we can at least verify the checksum ourselves
     req -in MINCOM.pem -verify -noout

## 5. Generating "dummy" certificates

     # SSLeay 0.5.0b+ (21-Dec-95) supports a quick mechanism for
    generating
     #                            "dummy" certificates
     cd /usr/local/ssl/certs
     req -new -x509 -nodes -out telnetd.pem -keyout telnetd.pem
     ln -s telnetd.pem `x509 -noout -hash < telnetd.pem`.0