PKI(1) strongSwan PKI(1)NAMEpki - Simple public key infrastructure (PKI) management tool
SYNOPSISpki command [option ...]
pki-h | --help
DESCRIPTIONpki is a suite of commands that allow you to manage a simple public key
infrastructure (PKI).
Generate RSA and ECDSA key pairs, create PKCS#10 certificate requests
containing subjectAltNames, create X.509 self-signed end-entity and
root CA certificates, issue end-entity and intermediate CA certificates
signed by the private key of a CA and containing subjectAltNames, CRL
distribution points and URIs of OCSP servers. You can also extract raw
public keys from private keys, certificate requests and certificates
and compute two kinds of SHA-1-based key IDs.
COMMANDS-h, --help
Prints usage information and a short summary of the available
commands.
-g, --gen
Generate a new private key.
-s, --self
Create a self-signed certificate.
-i, --issue
Issue a certificate using a CA certificate and key.
-c, --signcrl
Issue a CRL using a CA certificate and key.
-z, --acert
Issue an attribute certificate.
-r, --req
Create a PKCS#10 certificate request.
-7, --pkcs7
Provides PKCS#7 wrap/unwrap functions.
-k, --keyid
Calculate key identifiers of a key or certificate.
-a, --print
Print a credential (key, certificate etc.) in human readable
form.
-p, --pub
Extract a public key from a private key or certificate.
-v, --verify
Verify a certificate using a CA certificate.
EXAMPLES
Generating a CA Certificate
The first step is to generate a private key using the --gen command. By
default this generates a 2048-bit RSA key.
pki--gen > ca_key.der
This key is used to create the self-signed CA certificate, using the
--self command. The distinguished name should be adjusted to your
needs.
pki--self --ca --in ca_key.der \
--dn "C=CH, O=strongSwan, CN=strongSwan CA" > ca_cert.der
Generating End-Entity Certificates
With the root CA certificate and key at hand end-entity certificates
for clients and servers can be issued. Similarly intermediate CA cer‐
tificates can be issued, which in turn can issue other certificates.
To generate a certificate for a server, we start by generating a pri‐
vate key.
pki--gen > server_key.der
The public key will be included in the certificate so lets extract that
from the private key.
pki--pub --in server_key.der > server_pub.der
The following command will use the CA certificate and private key to
issue the certificate for this server. Adjust the distinguished name,
subjectAltName(s) and flags as needed (check pki --issue(8) for more
options).
pki--issue --in server_pub.der --cacert ca_cert.der \
--cakey ca_key.der --dn "C=CH, O=strongSwan, CN=VPN Server" \
--san vpn.strongswan.org --flag serverAuth > server_cert.der
Instead of storing the public key in a separate file, the output of
--pub may also be piped directly into the above command.
Generating Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL)
If end-entity certificates have to be revoked, CRLs may be generated
using the --signcrl command.
pki--signcrl --cacert ca_cert.der --cakey ca_key.der \
--reason superseded --cert server_cert.der > crl.der
The certificate given with --cacert must be either a CA certificate or
a certificate with the crlSign extended key usage (--flag crlSign).
URIs to CRLs may be included in issued certificates with the --crl
option.
SEE ALSOpki --gen(1), pki --self(1), pki --issue(1), pki --signcrl(1),
pki --acert(1), pki --req(1), pki --pkcs7(1), pki --keyid(1),
pki --print(1), pki --pub(1), pki --verify(1)5.1.3 2013-07-31 PKI(1)
