-config filename
specifies the configuration file to use.
-name section
specifies the configuration file section to use (overrides default_ca in the ca section).
-in filename
an input filename containing a single certificate request to be signed by the CA.
-ss_cert filename
a single self signed certificate to be signed by the CA.
-spkac filename
a file containing a single Netscape signed public key and challenge and additional field values to be signed by the CA. See the SPKAC FORMAT section for information on the required format.
-infiles
if present this should be the last option, all subsequent arguments are assumed to the the names of files containing certificate requests.
-out filename
the output file to output certificates to. The default is standard output. The certificate details will also be printed out to this file.
-outdir directory
the directory to output certificates to. The certificate will be written to a filename consisting of the serial number in hex with ".pem" appended.
-cert
the CA certificate file.
-keyfile filename
the private key to sign requests with.
-key password
the password used to encrypt the private key. Since on some systems the command line arguments are visible (e.g. Unix with the 'ps' utility) this option should be used with caution.
-selfsign
indicates the issued certificates are to be signed with the key the certificate requests were signed with (given with
-keyfile). Cerificate requests signed with a different key are ignored. If -spkac, -ss_cert or -gencrl are given, -selfsign is ignored.
A consequence of using
-selfsign is that the self-signed certificate appears among the entries in the certificate database (see the configuration option database), and uses the same serial number counter as all other certificates sign with the self-signed certificate.
-passin arg
the key password source. For more information about the format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in openssl(1).
-verbose
this prints extra details about the operations being performed.
-notext
don't output the text form of a certificate to the output file.
-startdate date
this allows the start date to be explicitly set. The format of the date is YYMMDDHHMMSSZ (the same as an ASN1 UTCTime structure).
-enddate date
this allows the expiry date to be explicitly set. The format of the date is YYMMDDHHMMSSZ (the same as an ASN1 UTCTime structure).
-days arg
the number of days to certify the certificate for.
-md alg
the message digest to use. Possible values include md5, sha1 and mdc2. This option also applies to CRLs.
-policy arg
this option defines the CA "policy" to use. This is a section in the configuration file which decides which fields should be mandatory or match the CA certificate. Check out the POLICY FORMAT section for more information.
-msie_hack
this is a legacy option to make ca work with very old versions of the IE certificate enrollment control "certenr3". It used UniversalStrings for almost everything. Since the old control has various security bugs its use is strongly discouraged. The newer control "Xenroll" does not need this option.
-preserveDN
Normally the DN order of a certificate is the same as the order of the fields in the relevant policy section. When this option is set the order is the same as the request. This is largely for compatibility with the older IE enrollment control which would only accept certificates if their DNs match the order of the request. This is not needed for Xenroll.
-noemailDN
The DN of a certificate can contain the EMAIL field if present in the request DN, however it is good policy just having the e-mail set into the altName extension of the certificate. When this option is set the EMAIL field is removed from the certificate' subject and set only in the, eventually present, extensions. The email_in_dn keyword can be used in the configuration file to enable this behaviour.
-batch
this sets the batch mode. In this mode no questions will be asked and all certificates will be certified automatically.
-extensions section
the section of the configuration file containing certificate extensions to be added when a certificate is issued (defaults to x509_extensions unless the -extfile option is used). If no extension section is present then, a V1 certificate is created. If the extension section is present (even if it is empty), then a V3 certificate is created. See the:w x509v3_config(5) manual page for details of the extension section format.
-extfile file
an additional configuration file to read certificate extensions from (using the default section unless the -extensions option is also used).
-engine id
specifying an engine (by its unique id string) will cause ca to attempt to obtain a functional reference to the specified engine, thus initialising it if needed. The engine will then be set as the default for all available algorithms.
-subj arg
supersedes subject name given in the request. The arg must be formatted as /type0=value0/type1=value1/type2=..., characters may be escaped by \ (backslash), no spaces are skipped.
-utf8
this option causes field values to be interpreted as UTF8 strings, by default they are interpreted as ASCII. This means that the field values, whether prompted from a terminal or obtained from a configuration file, must be valid UTF8 strings.
-multivalue-rdn
this option causes the -subj argument to be interpretedt with full support for multivalued RDNs. Example:
/DC=org/DC=OpenSSL/DC=users/UID=123456+CN=John Doe
If -multi-rdn is not used then the UID value is
123456+CN=John Doe.