PKI(1)

NAME
pki - Simple public key infrastructure (PKI) management tool

SYNOPSIS
pki command [option ...]
pki -h | --help

DESCRIPTION
pki 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.

-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 certificates can be issued, which in turn can issue other certificates. To generate a certificate for a server, we start by generating a private 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 ALSO
pki --gen(1), pki --self(1), pki --issue(1), pki --signcrl(1), pki --req(1), pki --pkcs7(1), pki --keyid(1), pki --print(1), pki --pub(1), pki --verify(1)