PKCS12(1)                   OpenSSL                   PKCS12(1)





NAME
       pkcs12 - PKCS#12 file utility

SYNOPSIS
       openssl pkcs12 [-export] [-chain] [-inkey filename]
       [-certfile filename] [-name name] [-caname name] [-in
       filename] [-out filename] [-noout] [-nomacver]
       [-nocerts] [-clcerts] [-cacerts] [-nokeys] [-info]
       [-des] [-des3] [-idea] [-nodes] [-noiter] [-maciter]
       [-twopass] [-descert] [-certpbe] [-keypbe] [-keyex]
       [-keysig] [-password arg] [-passin arg] [-passout arg]
       [-rand file(s)]

DESCRIPTION
       The pkcs12 command allows PKCS#12 files (sometimes
       referred to as PFX files) to be created and parsed.
       PKCS#12 files are used by several programs including
       Netscape, MSIE and MS Outlook.

COMMAND OPTIONS
       There are a lot of options the meaning of some depends
       of whether a PKCS#12 file is being created or parsed. By
       default a PKCS#12 file is parsed a PKCS#12 file can be
       created by using the -export option (see below).

PARSING OPTIONS
       -in filename
           This specifies filename of the PKCS#12 file to be
           parsed. Standard input is used by default.

       -out filename
           The filename to write certificates and private keys
           to, standard output by default.  They are all writ-
           ten in PEM format.

       -pass arg, -passin arg
           the PKCS#12 file (i.e. input file) password source.
           For more information about the format of arg see the
           PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in openssl(1).

       -passout arg
           pass phrase source to encrypt any outputed private
           keys with. For more information about the format of
           arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in
           openssl(1).

       -noout
           this option inhibits output of the keys and certifi-
           cates to the output file version of the PKCS#12
           file.

       -clcerts
           only output client certificates (not CA certifi-
           cates).

       -cacerts
           only output CA certificates (not client certifi-
           cates).

       -nocerts
           no certificates at all will be output.

       -nokeys
           no private keys will be output.

       -info
           output additional information about the PKCS#12 file
           structure, algorithms used and iteration counts.

       -des
           use DES to encrypt private keys before outputting.

       -des3
           use triple DES to encrypt private keys before out-
           putting, this is the default.

       -idea
           use IDEA to encrypt private keys before outputting.

       -nodes
           don't encrypt the private keys at all.

       -nomacver
           don't attempt to verify the integrity MAC before
           reading the file.

       -twopass
           prompt for separate integrity and encryption pass-
           words: most software always assumes these are the
           same so this option will render such PKCS#12 files
           unreadable.

FILE CREATION OPTIONS
       -export
           This option specifies that a PKCS#12 file will be
           created rather than parsed.

       -out filename
           This specifies filename to write the PKCS#12 file
           to. Standard output is used by default.

       -in filename
           The filename to read certificates and private keys
           from, standard input by default.  They must all be
           in PEM format. The order doesn't matter but one pri-
           vate key and its corresponding certificate should be
           present. If additional certificates are present they
           will also be included in the PKCS#12 file.

       -inkey filename
           file to read private key from. If not present then a
           private key must be present in the input file.

       -name friendlyname
           This specifies the "friendly name" for the certifi-
           cate and private key. This name is typically dis-
           played in list boxes by software importing the file.

       -certfile filename
           A filename to read additional certificates from.

       -caname friendlyname
           This specifies the "friendly name" for other cer-
           tificates. This option may be used multiple times to
           specify names for all certificates in the order they
           appear. Netscape ignores friendly names on other
           certificates whereas MSIE displays them.

       -pass arg, -passout arg
           the PKCS#12 file (i.e. output file) password source.
           For more information about the format of arg see the
           PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in openssl(1).

       -passin password
           pass phrase source to decrypt any input private keys
           with. For more information about the format of arg
           see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in openssl(1).

       -chain
           if this option is present then an attempt is made to
           include the entire certificate chain of the user
           certificate. The standard CA store is used for this
           search. If the search fails it is considered a fatal
           error.

       -descert
           encrypt the certificate using triple DES, this may
           render the PKCS#12 file unreadable by some "export
           grade" software. By default the private key is
           encrypted using triple DES and the certificate using
           40 bit RC2.

       -keypbe alg, -certpbe alg
           these options allow the algorithm used to encrypt
           the private key and certificates to be selected.
           Although any PKCS#5 v1.5 or PKCS#12 algorithms can
           be selected it is advisable only to use PKCS#12
           algorithms. See the list in the NOTES section for
           more information.

       -keyex|-keysig
           specifies that the private key is to be used for key
           exchange or just signing.  This option is only
           interpreted by MSIE and similar MS software. Nor-
           mally "export grade" software will only allow 512
           bit RSA keys to be used for encryption purposes but
           arbitrary length keys for signing. The -keysig
           option marks the key for signing only. Signing only
           keys can be used for S/MIME signing, authenticode
           (ActiveX control signing)  and SSL client authenti-
           cation, however due to a bug only MSIE 5.0 and later
           support the use of signing only keys for SSL client
           authentication.

       -nomaciter, -noiter
           these options affect the iteration counts on the MAC
           and key algorithms.  Unless you wish to produce
           files compatible with MSIE 4.0 you should leave
           these options alone.

           To discourage attacks by using large dictionaries of
           common passwords the algorithm that derives keys
           from passwords can have an iteration count applied
           to it: this causes a certain part of the algorithm
           to be repeated and slows it down. The MAC is used to
           check the file integrity but since it will normally
           have the same password as the keys and certificates
           it could also be attacked.  By default both MAC and
           encryption iteration counts are set to 2048, using
           these options the MAC and encryption iteration
           counts can be set to 1, since this reduces the file
           security you should not use these options unless you
           really have to. Most software supports both MAC and
           key iteration counts.  MSIE 4.0 doesn't support MAC
           iteration counts so it needs the -nomaciter option.

       -maciter
           This option is included for compatibility with pre-
           vious versions, it used to be needed to use MAC
           iterations counts but they are now used by default.

       -rand file(s)
           a file or files containing random data used to seed
           the random number generator, or an EGD socket (see
           RAND_egd(3)).  Multiple files can be specified sepa-
           rated by a OS-dependent character.  The separator is
           ; for MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all oth-
           ers.

NOTES
       Although there are a large number of options most of
       them are very rarely used. For PKCS#12 file parsing only
       -in and -out need to be used for PKCS#12 file creation
       -export and -name are also used.

       If none of the -clcerts, -cacerts or -nocerts options
       are present then all certificates will be output in the
       order they appear in the input PKCS#12 files. There is
       no guarantee that the first certificate present is the
       one corresponding to the private key. Certain software
       which requires a private key and certificate and assumes
       the first certificate in the file is the one correspond-
       ing to the private key: this may not always be the case.
       Using the -clcerts option will solve this problem by
       only outputting the certificate corresponding to the
       private key. If the CA certificates are required then
       they can be output to a separate file using the -nokeys
       -cacerts options to just output CA certificates.

       The -keypbe and -certpbe algorithms allow the precise
       encryption algorithms for private keys and certificates
       to be specified. Normally the defaults are fine but
       occasionally software can't handle triple DES encrypted
       private keys, then the option -keypbe PBE-SHA1-RC2-40
       can be used to reduce the private key encryption to 40
       bit RC2. A complete description of all algorithms is
       contained in the pkcs8 manual page.

EXAMPLES
       Parse a PKCS#12 file and output it to a file:

        openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -out file.pem

       Output only client certificates to a file:

        openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -clcerts -out file.pem

       Don't encrypt the private key:

        openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -out file.pem -nodes

       Print some info about a PKCS#12 file:

        openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -info -noout

       Create a PKCS#12 file:

        openssl pkcs12 -export -in file.pem -out file.p12 -name "My Certificate"

       Include some extra certificates:

        openssl pkcs12 -export -in file.pem -out file.p12 -name "My Certificate" \
         -certfile othercerts.pem

BUGS
       Some would argue that the PKCS#12 standard is one big
       bug :-)

       Versions of OpenSSL before 0.9.6a had a bug in the
       PKCS#12 key generation routines. Under rare circum-
       stances this could produce a PKCS#12 file encrypted with
       an invalid key. As a result some PKCS#12 files which
       triggered this bug from other implementations (MSIE or
       Netscape) could not be decrypted by OpenSSL and
       similarly OpenSSL could produce PKCS#12 files which
       could not be decrypted by other implementations. The
       chances of producing such a file are relatively small:
       less than 1 in 256.

       A side effect of fixing this bug is that any old
       invalidly encrypted PKCS#12 files cannot no longer be
       parsed by the fixed version. Under such circumstances
       the pkcs12 utility will report that the MAC is OK but
       fail with a decryption error when extracting private
       keys.

       This problem can be resolved by extracting the private
       keys and certificates from the PKCS#12 file using an
       older version of OpenSSL and recreating the PKCS#12 file
       from the keys and certificates using a newer version of
       OpenSSL. For example:

        old-openssl -in bad.p12 -out keycerts.pem
        openssl -in keycerts.pem -export -name "My PKCS#12 file" -out fixed.p12

SEE ALSO
       pkcs8(1)



0.9.7c                     2001-09-07                 PKCS12(1)
