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.

       The  pki  command  also  supports  certificate  enrollment via the Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol
       (SCEP) as defined by RFC 8894, replacing the obsoleted ipsec scepclient tool. Additionally the Enrollment
       over Secure Transport (EST) protocol (RFC 7030) is supported, too.

       The latest feature is an Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) responder  as  defined  by  RFC  6960,
       interoperating with an OpenXPKI server by directly accessing its internal certificate datebase.

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.

       -d, --dn
              Extract the subject DN of an X.509 certificate.

       -p, --pub
              Extract a public key from a private key or certificate.

       -v, --verify
              Verify a certificate using a CA certificate.

       -S, --scep
              Enroll an X.509 certificate with a SCEP server.

       -C, --scepca
              Get CA [and RA] certificate[s] from a SCEP server.

       -E, --est
              Enroll an X.509 certificate with an EST server.

       -e, --estca
              Get CA certificate[s] from an EST server.

       -o, --ocsp
              OCSP request parser and OCSP responder.

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 --acert(1),   pki --req(1),
       pki --pkcs7(1), pki --keyid(1), pki --print(1), pki --dn(1), pki --pub(1), pki --verify(1), pki --scep(1)
       pki --scepca(1) pki --est(1) pki --estca(1) pki --ocsp(1)

5.9.13                                             2023-10-20                                             PKI(1)