OCSP Client

OCSP Server

OCSP Client Options

-help

Print out a usage message.

-out filename

specify output filename, default is standard output.

-issuer filename

This specifies the current issuer certificate. This option can be used multiple times. This option MUST come before any -cert options.

-cert filename

Add the certificate filename to the request. The issuer certificate is taken from the previous -issuer option, or an error occurs if no issuer certificate is specified.

-no_certs

Don't include any certificates in signed request.

-serial num

Same as the -cert option except the certificate with serial number num is added to the request. The serial number is interpreted as a decimal integer unless preceded by "0x". Negative integers can also be specified by preceding the value by a "-" sign.

-signer filename, -signkey filename

Sign the OCSP request using the certificate specified in the -signer option and the private key specified by the -signkey option. If the -signkey option is not present then the private key is read from the same file as the certificate. If neither option is specified then the OCSP request is not signed.

-sign_other filename

Additional certificates to include in the signed request. The input can be in PEM, DER, or PKCS#12 format.

-nonce, -no_nonce

Add an OCSP nonce extension to a request or disable OCSP nonce addition. Normally if an OCSP request is input using the -reqin option no nonce is added: using the -nonce option will force addition of a nonce. If an OCSP request is being created (using -cert and -serial options) a nonce is automatically added specifying -no_nonce overrides this.

-req_text, -resp_text, -text

Print out the text form of the OCSP request, response or both respectively.

-reqout file, -respout file

Write out the DER encoded certificate request or response to file.

-reqin file, -respin file

Read OCSP request or response file from file. These option are ignored if OCSP request or response creation is implied by other options (for example with -serial, -cert and -host options).

-url responder_url

Specify the responder URL. Both HTTP and HTTPS (SSL/TLS) URLs can be specified. The optional userinfo and fragment components are ignored. Any given query component is handled as part of the path component.

-host hostname:port, -path pathname

If the -host option is present then the OCSP request is sent to the host hostname on port port. The -path option specifies the HTTP pathname to use or "/" by default. This is equivalent to specifying -url with scheme http:// and the given hostname, port, and pathname.

-proxy [http[s]://][userinfo@]host[:port][/path]

The HTTP(S) proxy server to use for reaching the OCSP server unless -no_proxy applies, see below. The proxy port defaults to 80 or 443 if the scheme is "https"; apart from that the optional "http://" or "https://" prefix is ignored, as well as any userinfo and path components. Defaults to the environment variable "http_proxy" if set, else "HTTP_PROXY" in case no TLS is used, otherwise "https_proxy" if set, else "HTTPS_PROXY".

-no_proxy addresses

List of IP addresses and/or DNS names of servers not to use an HTTP(S) proxy for, separated by commas and/or whitespace (where in the latter case the whole argument must be enclosed in "..."). Default is from the environment variable "no_proxy" if set, else "NO_PROXY".

-header name=value

Adds the header name with the specified value to the OCSP request that is sent to the responder. This may be repeated.

-timeout seconds

Connection timeout to the OCSP responder in seconds. On POSIX systems, when running as an OCSP responder, this option also limits the time that the responder is willing to wait for the client request. This time is measured from the time the responder accepts the connection until the complete request is received.

-verify_other file

File or URI containing additional certificates to search when attempting to locate the OCSP response signing certificate. Some responders omit the actual signer's certificate from the response: this option can be used to supply the necessary certificate in such cases. The input can be in PEM, DER, or PKCS#12 format.

-trust_other

The certificates specified by the -verify_other option should be explicitly trusted and no additional checks will be performed on them. This is useful when the complete responder certificate chain is not available or trusting a root CA is not appropriate.

-VAfile file

File or URI containing explicitly trusted responder certificates. Equivalent to the -verify_other and -trust_other options. The input can be in PEM, DER, or PKCS#12 format.

-noverify

Don't attempt to verify the OCSP response signature or the nonce values. This option will normally only be used for debugging since it disables all verification of the responders certificate.

-no_intern

Ignore certificates contained in the OCSP response when searching for the signers certificate. With this option the signers certificate must be specified with either the -verify_other or -VAfile options.

-no_signature_verify

Don't check the signature on the OCSP response. Since this option tolerates invalid signatures on OCSP responses it will normally only be used for testing purposes.

-no_cert_verify

Don't verify the OCSP response signers certificate at all. Since this option allows the OCSP response to be signed by any certificate it should only be used for testing purposes.

-no_chain

Do not use certificates in the response as additional untrusted CA certificates.

-no_explicit

Do not explicitly trust the root CA if it is set to be trusted for OCSP signing.

-no_cert_checks

Don't perform any additional checks on the OCSP response signers certificate. That is do not make any checks to see if the signers certificate is authorised to provide the necessary status information: as a result this option should only be used for testing purposes.

-validity_period nsec, -status_age age

These options specify the range of times, in seconds, which will be tolerated in an OCSP response. Each certificate status response includes a notBefore time and an optional notAfter time. The current time should fall between these two values, but the interval between the two times may be only a few seconds. In practice the OCSP responder and clients clocks may not be precisely synchronised and so such a check may fail. To avoid this the -validity_period option can be used to specify an acceptable error range in seconds, the default value is 5 minutes.

If the notAfter time is omitted from a response then this means that new status information is immediately available. In this case the age of the notBefore field is checked to see it is not older than age seconds old. By default this additional check is not performed.

-rcid digest

This option sets the digest algorithm to use for certificate identification in the OCSP response. Any digest supported by the openssl-dgst(1) command can be used. The default is the same digest algorithm used in the request.

-digest

This option sets digest algorithm to use for certificate identification in the OCSP request. Any digest supported by the OpenSSL dgst command can be used. The default is SHA-1. This option may be used multiple times to specify the digest used by subsequent certificate identifiers.

-CAfile file, -no-CAfile, -CApath dir, -no-CApath, -CAstore uri, -no-CAstore

See "Trusted Certificate Options" in openssl-verification-options(1) for details.

-allow_proxy_certs, -attime, -no_check_time, -check_ss_sig, -crl_check, -crl_check_all, -explicit_policy, -extended_crl, -ignore_critical, -inhibit_any, -inhibit_map, -no_alt_chains, -partial_chain, -policy, -policy_check, -policy_print, -purpose, -suiteB_128, -suiteB_128_only, -suiteB_192, -trusted_first, -use_deltas, -auth_level, -verify_depth, -verify_email, -verify_hostname, -verify_ip, -verify_name, -x509_strict -issuer_checks

Set various options of certificate chain verification. See "Verification Options" in openssl-verification-options(1) for details.

-provider name

-provider-path path

-propquery propq

See "Provider Options" in openssl(1), provider(7), and property(7).

OCSP Server Options

-index indexfile

The indexfile parameter is the name of a text index file in ca format containing certificate revocation information.

If the -index option is specified then this command switches to responder mode, otherwise it is in client mode. The request(s) the responder processes can be either specified on the command line (using -issuer and -serial options), supplied in a file (using the -reqin option) or via external OCSP clients (if -port or -url is specified).

If the -index option is present then the -CA and -rsigner options must also be present.

-CA file

CA certificate corresponding to the revocation information in the index file given with -index. The input can be in PEM, DER, or PKCS#12 format.

-rsigner file

The certificate to sign OCSP responses with.

-rkey file

The private key to sign OCSP responses with: if not present the file specified in the -rsigner option is used.

-passin arg

The private key password source. For more information about the format of arg see openssl-passphrase-options(1).

-rother file

Additional certificates to include in the OCSP response. The input can be in PEM, DER, or PKCS#12 format.

-rsigopt nm:v

Pass options to the signature algorithm when signing OCSP responses. Names and values of these options are algorithm-specific.

-rmd digest

The digest to use when signing the response.

-badsig

Corrupt the response signature before writing it; this can be useful for testing.

-resp_no_certs

Don't include any certificates in the OCSP response.

-resp_key_id

Identify the signer certificate using the key ID, default is to use the subject name.

-port portnum

Port to listen for OCSP requests on. The port may also be specified using the url option. A 0 argument indicates that any available port shall be chosen automatically.

-ignore_err

Ignore malformed requests or responses: When acting as an OCSP client, retry if a malformed response is received. When acting as an OCSP responder, continue running instead of terminating upon receiving a malformed request.

-nrequest number

The OCSP server will exit after receiving number requests, default unlimited.

-multi process-count

Run the specified number of OCSP responder child processes, with the parent process respawning child processes as needed. Child processes will detect changes in the CA index file and automatically reload it. When running as a responder -timeout option is recommended to limit the time each child is willing to wait for the client's OCSP response. This option is available on POSIX systems (that support the fork() and other required unix system-calls).

-nmin minutes, -ndays days

Number of minutes or days when fresh revocation information is available: used in the nextUpdate field. If neither option is present then the nextUpdate field is omitted meaning fresh revocation information is immediately available.