OpenSSL Creating a Private Certificate Authority

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Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS

  1. Move to the Certificate Authority directory.
    # cd /etc/pki/CA
    # mkdir /etc/pki/CA/{csrs,private,crl,newcerts,certs}
  2. Create the index.txt and serial files needed for the Certificate Authority.
    # touch /etc/pki/CA/index.txt
    # touch /etc/pki/CA/serial
    # echo 01 > serial
  3. Copy the existing openssl.cnf to the Certificate Authority directory.
    # cp /etc/pki/tls/openssl.cnf /etc/pki/CA/.
  4. Generate the CA Private Key and CA Certificate:
    # cd /etc/pki/CA/
    # openssl req -config openssl.cnf -new -x509 -extensions v3_ca -keyout private/cakey.pem -out cacert.pem -days 36525
  5. To sign a CSR.
    1. Upload the <certificate signing request>.csr to /etc/pki/CA/csrs/.
    # cd /etc/pki/CA
    # openssl ca -config openssl.cnf -policy policy_anything -out certs/<certificate>.crt -infiles csrs/<certificate signing request>.csr
  6. Enable SubjectAltName
    1. Locate the [ proxy_cert_ext ] stanza.
    2. Uncomment subjectAltName=email:copy and subjectAltName=email:move lines.

Debian/Ubuntu