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>]
91 The Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) enables applications to
92 determine the (revocation) state of an identified certificate (RFC 2560).
94 The B<ocsp> command performs many common OCSP tasks. It can be used
95 to print out requests and responses, create requests and send queries
96 to an OCSP responder and behave like a mini OCSP server itself.
98 =head1 OCSP CLIENT OPTIONS
104 Print out a usage message.
106 =item B<-out filename>
108 specify output filename, default is standard output.
110 =item B<-issuer filename>
112 This specifies the current issuer certificate. This option can be used
113 multiple times. The certificate specified in B<filename> must be in
114 PEM format. This option B<MUST> come before any B<-cert> options.
116 =item B<-cert filename>
118 Add the certificate B<filename> to the request. The issuer certificate
119 is taken from the previous B<issuer> option, or an error occurs if no
120 issuer certificate is specified.
124 Same as the B<cert> option except the certificate with serial number
125 B<num> is added to the request. The serial number is interpreted as a
126 decimal integer unless preceded by B<0x>. Negative integers can also
127 be specified by preceding the value by a B<-> sign.
129 =item B<-signer filename>, B<-signkey filename>
131 Sign the OCSP request using the certificate specified in the B<signer>
132 option and the private key specified by the B<signkey> option. If
133 the B<signkey> option is not present then the private key is read
134 from the same file as the certificate. If neither option is specified then
135 the OCSP request is not signed.
137 =item B<-sign_other filename>
139 Additional certificates to include in the signed request.
141 =item B<-nonce>, B<-no_nonce>
143 Add an OCSP nonce extension to a request or disable OCSP nonce addition.
144 Normally if an OCSP request is input using the B<reqin> option no
145 nonce is added: using the B<nonce> option will force addition of a nonce.
146 If an OCSP request is being created (using B<cert> and B<serial> options)
147 a nonce is automatically added specifying B<no_nonce> overrides this.
149 =item B<-req_text>, B<-resp_text>, B<-text>
151 print out the text form of the OCSP request, response or both respectively.
153 =item B<-reqout file>, B<-respout file>
155 write out the DER encoded certificate request or response to B<file>.
157 =item B<-reqin file>, B<-respin file>
159 read OCSP request or response file from B<file>. These option are ignored
160 if OCSP request or response creation is implied by other options (for example
161 with B<serial>, B<cert> and B<host> options).
163 =item B<-url responder_url>
165 specify the responder URL. Both HTTP and HTTPS (SSL/TLS) URLs can be specified.
167 =item B<-host hostname:port>, B<-path pathname>
169 if the B<host> option is present then the OCSP request is sent to the host
170 B<hostname> on port B<port>. B<path> specifies the HTTP path name to use
171 or "/" by default. This is equivalent to specifying B<-url> with scheme
172 http:// and the given hostname, port, and pathname.
174 =item B<-header name=value>
176 Adds the header B<name> with the specified B<value> to the OCSP request
177 that is sent to the responder.
178 This may be repeated.
180 =item B<-timeout seconds>
182 connection timeout to the OCSP responder in seconds
184 =item B<-CAfile file>, B<-CApath pathname>
186 file or pathname containing trusted CA certificates. These are used to verify
187 the signature on the OCSP response.
191 Do not load the trusted CA certificates from the default file location
195 Do not load the trusted CA certificates from the default directory location
197 =item B<-attime>, B<-check_ss_sig>, B<-crl_check>, B<-crl_check_all>,
198 B<-explicit_policy>, B<-extended_crl>, B<-ignore_critical>, B<-inhibit_any>,
199 B<-inhibit_map>, B<-no_alt_chains>, B<-no_check_time>, B<-partial_chain>, B<-policy>,
200 B<-policy_check>, B<-policy_print>, B<-purpose>, B<-suiteB_128>,
201 B<-suiteB_128_only>, B<-suiteB_192>, B<-trusted_first>, B<-use_deltas>,
202 B<-auth_level>, B<-verify_depth>, B<-verify_email>, B<-verify_hostname>,
203 B<-verify_ip>, B<-verify_name>, B<-x509_strict>
205 Set different certificate verification options.
206 See L<verify(1)> manual page for details.
208 =item B<-verify_other file>
210 file containing additional certificates to search when attempting to locate
211 the OCSP response signing certificate. Some responders omit the actual signer's
212 certificate from the response: this option can be used to supply the necessary
213 certificate in such cases.
215 =item B<-trust_other>
217 the certificates specified by the B<-verify_other> option should be explicitly
218 trusted and no additional checks will be performed on them. This is useful
219 when the complete responder certificate chain is not available or trusting a
220 root CA is not appropriate.
222 =item B<-VAfile file>
224 file containing explicitly trusted responder certificates. Equivalent to the
225 B<-verify_other> and B<-trust_other> options.
229 don't attempt to verify the OCSP response signature or the nonce values. This
230 option will normally only be used for debugging since it disables all verification
231 of the responders certificate.
235 ignore certificates contained in the OCSP response when searching for the
236 signers certificate. With this option the signers certificate must be specified
237 with either the B<-verify_other> or B<-VAfile> options.
239 =item B<-no_signature_verify>
241 don't check the signature on the OCSP response. Since this option tolerates invalid
242 signatures on OCSP responses it will normally only be used for testing purposes.
244 =item B<-no_cert_verify>
246 don't verify the OCSP response signers certificate at all. Since this option allows
247 the OCSP response to be signed by any certificate it should only be used for
252 do not use certificates in the response as additional untrusted CA
255 =item B<-no_explicit>
257 do not explicitly trust the root CA if it is set to be trusted for OCSP signing.
259 =item B<-no_cert_checks>
261 don't perform any additional checks on the OCSP response signers certificate.
262 That is do not make any checks to see if the signers certificate is authorised
263 to provide the necessary status information: as a result this option should
264 only be used for testing purposes.
266 =item B<-validity_period nsec>, B<-status_age age>
268 these options specify the range of times, in seconds, which will be tolerated
269 in an OCSP response. Each certificate status response includes a B<notBefore>
270 time and an optional B<notAfter> time. The current time should fall between
271 these two values, but the interval between the two times may be only a few
272 seconds. In practice the OCSP responder and clients clocks may not be precisely
273 synchronised and so such a check may fail. To avoid this the
274 B<-validity_period> option can be used to specify an acceptable error range in
275 seconds, the default value is 5 minutes.
277 If the B<notAfter> time is omitted from a response then this means that new
278 status information is immediately available. In this case the age of the
279 B<notBefore> field is checked to see it is not older than B<age> seconds old.
280 By default this additional check is not performed.
284 this option sets digest algorithm to use for certificate identification in the
285 OCSP request. Any digest supported by the OpenSSL B<dgst> command can be used.
286 The default is SHA-1. This option may be used multiple times to specify the
287 digest used by subsequent certificate identifiers.
291 =head1 OCSP SERVER OPTIONS
295 =item B<-index indexfile>
297 B<indexfile> is a text index file in B<ca> format containing certificate revocation
300 If the B<index> option is specified the B<ocsp> utility is in responder mode, otherwise
301 it is in client mode. The request(s) the responder processes can be either specified on
302 the command line (using B<issuer> and B<serial> options), supplied in a file (using the
303 B<reqin> option) or via external OCSP clients (if B<port> or B<url> is specified).
305 If the B<index> option is present then the B<CA> and B<rsigner> options must also be
310 CA certificate corresponding to the revocation information in B<indexfile>.
312 =item B<-rsigner file>
314 The certificate to sign OCSP responses with.
316 =item B<-rother file>
318 Additional certificates to include in the OCSP response.
320 =item B<-resp_no_certs>
322 Don't include any certificates in the OCSP response.
324 =item B<-resp_key_id>
326 Identify the signer certificate using the key ID, default is to use the subject name.
330 The private key to sign OCSP responses with: if not present the file specified in the
331 B<rsigner> option is used.
333 =item B<-port portnum>
335 Port to listen for OCSP requests on. The port may also be specified using the B<url>
338 =item B<-nrequest number>
340 The OCSP server will exit after receiving B<number> requests, default unlimited.
342 =item B<-nmin minutes>, B<-ndays days>
344 Number of minutes or days when fresh revocation information is available: used in the
345 B<nextUpdate> field. If neither option is present then the B<nextUpdate> field
346 is omitted meaning fresh revocation information is immediately available.
350 =head1 OCSP Response verification.
352 OCSP Response follows the rules specified in RFC2560.
354 Initially the OCSP responder certificate is located and the signature on
355 the OCSP request checked using the responder certificate's public key.
357 Then a normal certificate verify is performed on the OCSP responder certificate
358 building up a certificate chain in the process. The locations of the trusted
359 certificates used to build the chain can be specified by the B<CAfile>
360 and B<CApath> options or they will be looked for in the standard OpenSSL
361 certificates directory.
363 If the initial verify fails then the OCSP verify process halts with an
366 Otherwise the issuing CA certificate in the request is compared to the OCSP
367 responder certificate: if there is a match then the OCSP verify succeeds.
369 Otherwise the OCSP responder certificate's CA is checked against the issuing
370 CA certificate in the request. If there is a match and the OCSPSigning
371 extended key usage is present in the OCSP responder certificate then the
372 OCSP verify succeeds.
374 Otherwise, if B<-no_explicit> is B<not> set the root CA of the OCSP responders
375 CA is checked to see if it is trusted for OCSP signing. If it is the OCSP
378 If none of these checks is successful then the OCSP verify fails.
380 What this effectively means if that if the OCSP responder certificate is
381 authorised directly by the CA it is issuing revocation information about
382 (and it is correctly configured) then verification will succeed.
384 If the OCSP responder is a "global responder" which can give details about
385 multiple CAs and has its own separate certificate chain then its root
386 CA can be trusted for OCSP signing. For example:
388 openssl x509 -in ocspCA.pem -addtrust OCSPSigning -out trustedCA.pem
390 Alternatively the responder certificate itself can be explicitly trusted
391 with the B<-VAfile> option.
395 As noted, most of the verify options are for testing or debugging purposes.
396 Normally only the B<-CApath>, B<-CAfile> and (if the responder is a 'global
397 VA') B<-VAfile> options need to be used.
399 The OCSP server is only useful for test and demonstration purposes: it is
400 not really usable as a full OCSP responder. It contains only a very
401 simple HTTP request handling and can only handle the POST form of OCSP
402 queries. It also handles requests serially meaning it cannot respond to
403 new requests until it has processed the current one. The text index file
404 format of revocation is also inefficient for large quantities of revocation
407 It is possible to run the B<ocsp> application in responder mode via a CGI
408 script using the B<reqin> and B<respout> options.
412 Create an OCSP request and write it to a file:
414 openssl ocsp -issuer issuer.pem -cert c1.pem -cert c2.pem -reqout req.der
416 Send a query to an OCSP responder with URL http://ocsp.myhost.com/ save the
417 response to a file, print it out in text form, and verify the response:
419 openssl ocsp -issuer issuer.pem -cert c1.pem -cert c2.pem \
420 -url http://ocsp.myhost.com/ -resp_text -respout resp.der
422 Read in an OCSP response and print out text form:
424 openssl ocsp -respin resp.der -text -noverify
426 OCSP server on port 8888 using a standard B<ca> configuration, and a separate
427 responder certificate. All requests and responses are printed to a file.
429 openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -port 8888 -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
432 As above but exit after processing one request:
434 openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -port 8888 -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
437 Query status information using an internally generated request:
439 openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
440 -issuer demoCA/cacert.pem -serial 1
442 Query status information using request read from a file, and write the response
445 openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
446 -reqin req.der -respout resp.der
450 The -no_alt_chains options was first added to OpenSSL 1.1.0.
454 Copyright 2001-2016 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.
456 Licensed under the OpenSSL license (the "License"). You may not use
457 this file except in compliance with the License. You can obtain a copy
458 in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at
459 L<https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.