5 ocsp - Online Certificate Status Protocol utility
36 [B<-attime timestamp>]
58 [B<-verify_depth num>]
59 [B<-verify_email email>]
60 [B<-verify_hostname hostname>]
62 [B<-verify_name name>]
65 [B<-validity_period n>]
68 [B<-verify_other file>]
71 [B<-no_signature_verify>]
92 The Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) enables applications to
93 determine the (revocation) state of an identified certificate (RFC 2560).
95 The B<ocsp> command performs many common OCSP tasks. It can be used
96 to print out requests and responses, create requests and send queries
97 to an OCSP responder and behave like a mini OCSP server itself.
101 This command operates as either a client or a server.
102 The options are described below, divided into those two modes.
104 =head2 OCSP Client Options
110 Print out a usage message.
112 =item B<-out filename>
114 specify output filename, default is standard output.
116 =item B<-issuer filename>
118 This specifies the current issuer certificate. This option can be used
119 multiple times. The certificate specified in B<filename> must be in
120 PEM format. This option B<MUST> come before any B<-cert> options.
122 =item B<-cert filename>
124 Add the certificate B<filename> to the request. The issuer certificate
125 is taken from the previous B<issuer> option, or an error occurs if no
126 issuer certificate is specified.
130 Same as the B<cert> option except the certificate with serial number
131 B<num> is added to the request. The serial number is interpreted as a
132 decimal integer unless preceded by B<0x>. Negative integers can also
133 be specified by preceding the value by a B<-> sign.
135 =item B<-signer filename>, B<-signkey filename>
137 Sign the OCSP request using the certificate specified in the B<signer>
138 option and the private key specified by the B<signkey> option. If
139 the B<signkey> option is not present then the private key is read
140 from the same file as the certificate. If neither option is specified then
141 the OCSP request is not signed.
143 =item B<-sign_other filename>
145 Additional certificates to include in the signed request.
147 =item B<-nonce>, B<-no_nonce>
149 Add an OCSP nonce extension to a request or disable OCSP nonce addition.
150 Normally if an OCSP request is input using the B<reqin> option no
151 nonce is added: using the B<nonce> option will force addition of a nonce.
152 If an OCSP request is being created (using B<cert> and B<serial> options)
153 a nonce is automatically added specifying B<no_nonce> overrides this.
155 =item B<-req_text>, B<-resp_text>, B<-text>
157 Print out the text form of the OCSP request, response or both respectively.
159 =item B<-reqout file>, B<-respout file>
161 Write out the DER encoded certificate request or response to B<file>.
163 =item B<-reqin file>, B<-respin file>
165 Read OCSP request or response file from B<file>. These option are ignored
166 if OCSP request or response creation is implied by other options (for example
167 with B<serial>, B<cert> and B<host> options).
169 =item B<-url responder_url>
171 Specify the responder URL. Both HTTP and HTTPS (SSL/TLS) URLs can be specified.
173 =item B<-host hostname:port>, B<-path pathname>
175 If the B<host> option is present then the OCSP request is sent to the host
176 B<hostname> on port B<port>. B<path> specifies the HTTP path name to use
177 or "/" by default. This is equivalent to specifying B<-url> with scheme
178 http:// and the given hostname, port, and pathname.
180 =item B<-header name=value>
182 Adds the header B<name> with the specified B<value> to the OCSP request
183 that is sent to the responder.
184 This may be repeated.
186 =item B<-timeout seconds>
188 Connection timeout to the OCSP responder in seconds
190 =item B<-CAfile file>, B<-CApath pathname>
192 File or pathname containing trusted CA certificates. These are used to verify
193 the signature on the OCSP response.
197 Do not load the trusted CA certificates from the default file location
201 Do not load the trusted CA certificates from the default directory location
203 =item B<-attime>, B<-check_ss_sig>, B<-crl_check>, B<-crl_check_all>,
204 B<-explicit_policy>, B<-extended_crl>, B<-ignore_critical>, B<-inhibit_any>,
205 B<-inhibit_map>, B<-no_alt_chains>, B<-no_check_time>, B<-partial_chain>, B<-policy>,
206 B<-policy_check>, B<-policy_print>, B<-purpose>, B<-suiteB_128>,
207 B<-suiteB_128_only>, B<-suiteB_192>, B<-trusted_first>, B<-use_deltas>,
208 B<-auth_level>, B<-verify_depth>, B<-verify_email>, B<-verify_hostname>,
209 B<-verify_ip>, B<-verify_name>, B<-x509_strict>
211 Set different certificate verification options.
212 See L<verify(1)> manual page for details.
214 =item B<-verify_other file>
216 File containing additional certificates to search when attempting to locate
217 the OCSP response signing certificate. Some responders omit the actual signer's
218 certificate from the response: this option can be used to supply the necessary
219 certificate in such cases.
221 =item B<-trust_other>
223 The certificates specified by the B<-verify_other> option should be explicitly
224 trusted and no additional checks will be performed on them. This is useful
225 when the complete responder certificate chain is not available or trusting a
226 root CA is not appropriate.
228 =item B<-VAfile file>
230 File containing explicitly trusted responder certificates. Equivalent to the
231 B<-verify_other> and B<-trust_other> options.
235 Don't attempt to verify the OCSP response signature or the nonce
236 values. This option will normally only be used for debugging since it
237 disables all verification of the responders certificate.
241 Ignore certificates contained in the OCSP response when searching for the
242 signers certificate. With this option the signers certificate must be specified
243 with either the B<-verify_other> or B<-VAfile> options.
245 =item B<-no_signature_verify>
247 Don't check the signature on the OCSP response. Since this option
248 tolerates invalid signatures on OCSP responses it will normally only be
249 used for testing purposes.
251 =item B<-no_cert_verify>
253 Don't verify the OCSP response signers certificate at all. Since this
254 option allows the OCSP response to be signed by any certificate it should
255 only be used for testing purposes.
259 Do not use certificates in the response as additional untrusted CA
262 =item B<-no_explicit>
264 Do not explicitly trust the root CA if it is set to be trusted for OCSP signing.
266 =item B<-no_cert_checks>
268 Don't perform any additional checks on the OCSP response signers certificate.
269 That is do not make any checks to see if the signers certificate is authorised
270 to provide the necessary status information: as a result this option should
271 only be used for testing purposes.
273 =item B<-validity_period nsec>, B<-status_age age>
275 These options specify the range of times, in seconds, which will be tolerated
276 in an OCSP response. Each certificate status response includes a B<notBefore>
277 time and an optional B<notAfter> time. The current time should fall between
278 these two values, but the interval between the two times may be only a few
279 seconds. In practice the OCSP responder and clients clocks may not be precisely
280 synchronised and so such a check may fail. To avoid this the
281 B<-validity_period> option can be used to specify an acceptable error range in
282 seconds, the default value is 5 minutes.
284 If the B<notAfter> time is omitted from a response then this means that new
285 status information is immediately available. In this case the age of the
286 B<notBefore> field is checked to see it is not older than B<age> seconds old.
287 By default this additional check is not performed.
291 This option sets digest algorithm to use for certificate identification in the
292 OCSP request. Any digest supported by the OpenSSL B<dgst> command can be used.
293 The default is SHA-1. This option may be used multiple times to specify the
294 digest used by subsequent certificate identifiers.
298 =head2 OCSP Server Options
302 =item B<-index indexfile>
304 The B<indexfile> parameter is the name of a text index file in B<ca>
305 format containing certificate revocation information.
307 If the B<index> option is specified the B<ocsp> utility is in responder
308 mode, otherwise it is in client mode. The request(s) the responder
309 processes can be either specified on the command line (using B<issuer>
310 and B<serial> options), supplied in a file (using the B<reqin> option)
311 or via external OCSP clients (if B<port> or B<url> is specified).
313 If the B<index> option is present then the B<CA> and B<rsigner> options
314 must also be present.
318 CA certificate corresponding to the revocation information in B<indexfile>.
320 =item B<-rsigner file>
322 The certificate to sign OCSP responses with.
324 =item B<-rother file>
326 Additional certificates to include in the OCSP response.
328 =item B<-resp_no_certs>
330 Don't include any certificates in the OCSP response.
332 =item B<-resp_key_id>
334 Identify the signer certificate using the key ID, default is to use the
339 The private key to sign OCSP responses with: if not present the file
340 specified in the B<rsigner> option is used.
342 =item B<-port portnum>
344 Port to listen for OCSP requests on. The port may also be specified
345 using the B<url> option.
349 Ignore malformed requests or responses: When acting as an OCSP client, retry if
350 a malformed response is received. When acting as an OCSP responder, continue
351 running instead of terminating upon receiving a malformed request.
353 =item B<-nrequest number>
355 The OCSP server will exit after receiving B<number> requests, default unlimited.
357 =item B<-nmin minutes>, B<-ndays days>
359 Number of minutes or days when fresh revocation information is available:
360 used in the B<nextUpdate> field. If neither option is present then the
361 B<nextUpdate> field is omitted meaning fresh revocation information is
362 immediately available.
366 =head1 OCSP Response verification.
368 OCSP Response follows the rules specified in RFC2560.
370 Initially the OCSP responder certificate is located and the signature on
371 the OCSP request checked using the responder certificate's public key.
373 Then a normal certificate verify is performed on the OCSP responder certificate
374 building up a certificate chain in the process. The locations of the trusted
375 certificates used to build the chain can be specified by the B<CAfile>
376 and B<CApath> options or they will be looked for in the standard OpenSSL
377 certificates directory.
379 If the initial verify fails then the OCSP verify process halts with an
382 Otherwise the issuing CA certificate in the request is compared to the OCSP
383 responder certificate: if there is a match then the OCSP verify succeeds.
385 Otherwise the OCSP responder certificate's CA is checked against the issuing
386 CA certificate in the request. If there is a match and the OCSPSigning
387 extended key usage is present in the OCSP responder certificate then the
388 OCSP verify succeeds.
390 Otherwise, if B<-no_explicit> is B<not> set the root CA of the OCSP responders
391 CA is checked to see if it is trusted for OCSP signing. If it is the OCSP
394 If none of these checks is successful then the OCSP verify fails.
396 What this effectively means if that if the OCSP responder certificate is
397 authorised directly by the CA it is issuing revocation information about
398 (and it is correctly configured) then verification will succeed.
400 If the OCSP responder is a "global responder" which can give details about
401 multiple CAs and has its own separate certificate chain then its root
402 CA can be trusted for OCSP signing. For example:
404 openssl x509 -in ocspCA.pem -addtrust OCSPSigning -out trustedCA.pem
406 Alternatively the responder certificate itself can be explicitly trusted
407 with the B<-VAfile> option.
411 As noted, most of the verify options are for testing or debugging purposes.
412 Normally only the B<-CApath>, B<-CAfile> and (if the responder is a 'global
413 VA') B<-VAfile> options need to be used.
415 The OCSP server is only useful for test and demonstration purposes: it is
416 not really usable as a full OCSP responder. It contains only a very
417 simple HTTP request handling and can only handle the POST form of OCSP
418 queries. It also handles requests serially meaning it cannot respond to
419 new requests until it has processed the current one. The text index file
420 format of revocation is also inefficient for large quantities of revocation
423 It is possible to run the B<ocsp> application in responder mode via a CGI
424 script using the B<reqin> and B<respout> options.
428 Create an OCSP request and write it to a file:
430 openssl ocsp -issuer issuer.pem -cert c1.pem -cert c2.pem -reqout req.der
432 Send a query to an OCSP responder with URL http://ocsp.myhost.com/ save the
433 response to a file, print it out in text form, and verify the response:
435 openssl ocsp -issuer issuer.pem -cert c1.pem -cert c2.pem \
436 -url http://ocsp.myhost.com/ -resp_text -respout resp.der
438 Read in an OCSP response and print out text form:
440 openssl ocsp -respin resp.der -text -noverify
442 OCSP server on port 8888 using a standard B<ca> configuration, and a separate
443 responder certificate. All requests and responses are printed to a file.
445 openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -port 8888 -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
448 As above but exit after processing one request:
450 openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -port 8888 -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
453 Query status information using an internally generated request:
455 openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
456 -issuer demoCA/cacert.pem -serial 1
458 Query status information using request read from a file, and write the response
461 openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
462 -reqin req.der -respout resp.der
466 The -no_alt_chains options was first added to OpenSSL 1.1.0.
470 Copyright 2001-2017 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.
472 Licensed under the OpenSSL license (the "License"). You may not use
473 this file except in compliance with the License. You can obtain a copy
474 in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at
475 L<https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.