OpenSSL

OpenSSL is a cryptography toolkit implementing the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) network protocols and related required cryptography standards. OpenSSL can be used to make certificates that follow the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).

Only the most basic definitions regarding public key encryption and digital signing are explained in this article. Please refer to the suggested articles and sites for further readings on this topic.

A Certification Authority (CA) is an organization, either commercial or nonprofit, that is capable of validating a certificate. The best-known CAs are VeriSign and Thawte. Open your security preferences in your browser and you should find a list of certificates from multiple CAs already defined there.

A digital certificate is mathematically generated data that is almost impossible to duplicate and therefore can be considered unique and non-reproducible. It is useful as a mechanism that demonstrates that an email does indeed come from a particular organization or individual and that it has neither been tampered nor forged.

Encryption is the translation of data into a secret code. Encryption is the most effective way to achieve data security. To read an encrypted file, you must have access to a secret key or password that enables you to decrypt it. Unencrypted data is called plain text; encrypted data is referred to as cipher text.

The use of combined public and private keys is known as asymmetric cryptography. A public key is a value provided by some designated authority, such as a commercial Certification Authority, as an encryption key. A private key is secretly derived from the public key and is controlled by the person who wishes to sign email or receive encrypted messages by others who encrypt their messages using their public keys.

A Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) consists of three parts:

1. A Certification Authority (CA) that issues and verifies digital certificates. A certificate includes the public key and information about the public key.
2. A Registration Authority (RA) that acts as the verifier for the certificate authority before a digital certificate is issued to a requestor.
3. A location on the computer where the certificates and public keys are stored.

Creating and Signing Your Own CA Certificates

Create a Root Certification Authority Certificate

Creating a self-signed certificate is simple. Just navigate on a text console to a location in your directory where the files and directories will be created and type the correct path to the Perl script CA.pl:

$ /usr/share/ssl/misc/CA.pl -newca

Figure 1. Running CA.pl

You will now be prompted to answer a number of questions:

Figure 2. CA questions

After successfully answering all the questions, you should have a directory called demoCA with a number of files and directories in it. Keep in mind that if you forget the PEM passphrase, you will have rendered the certificate useless and will have to start all over again.

The Root Certification Authority Certificate authenticates all certificates that the browser accepts through normal email correspondence that is signed with this certificate. It is with this certificate that all subsequent certificates that you create and sign against can be verified as legitimate. Installing this certificate on a company web site allows the employees to incorporate this into their browsers and further secure their company communications as they sign and encrypt their messages. Take demoCA/cacert.pem and copy it as cacert.crt to your web server. You can then pick up the Root Certification Authority Certificate from the web server via the browser.

Create Your Personal Certificate

To create your public and private keys, generate a certificate request by typing the following in the same directory as you did with the previous command:

$ /usr/share/ssl/misc/CA.pl -newreq

As with the Root CA script, this script will guide you through series of questions and requests that you must answer before the private key in newreq.pem and the certificate newcert.pem are created and signed with the file cacert.pem, which is your Root Authority certificate.

Beware of your newreq.pem file, as it contains not only a certificate request, but also your private key. The -PRIVATE KEY- section is not required when you sign it. So if you request that someone else sign your certificate request, ensure that you have removed the -PRIVATE KEY- section from the file. If you sign a certificate request for someone else, ask him for his -CERTIFICATE REQUEST- section and not the private key section.

Sign the Certificate Request

Proceed by typing the following command:

$ /usr/share/ssl/misc/CA.pl -sign

The certificate that you have created will now be signed with the Root Certificate's private key at demoCA/private/cakey.pem. A new file called newcert.pem has now been created. This file is your certificate signed with the Root CA certificate.

Create newcert.p12 from newcert.pem

We're almost done! A PKCS#12 file contains the user's certificate, his private key, and the CA certificate. The CA.pl script uses the user certificate and private key in the file newcert.pem and the CA certificate in the file demoCA/cacert.pem. The PKCS#12 file can be imported directly into a browser. In addition, a user-specific name can be added as an additional argument on the command line for the certificate.

$ /usr/share/ssl/misc/CA.pl -pkcs12

You will be asked for the PEM password and then asked to a create an export password. You now have a file called newcert.p12 that will be compatible with Mozilla, Netscape, Outlook, and Outlook Express for signing and encrypting email.