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authorErlang/OTP <otp@erlang.org>2009-11-20 14:54:40 +0000
committerErlang/OTP <otp@erlang.org>2009-11-20 14:54:40 +0000
commit84adefa331c4159d432d22840663c38f155cd4c1 (patch)
treebff9a9c66adda4df2106dfd0e5c053ab182a12bd /lib/ssl/doc/src/create_certs.xml
downloaderlang-84adefa331c4159d432d22840663c38f155cd4c1.tar.gz
The R13B03 release.OTP_R13B03
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="latin1" ?>
+<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "chapter.dtd">
+
+<chapter>
+ <header>
+ <copyright>
+ <year>2003</year><year>2009</year>
+ <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
+ </copyright>
+ <legalnotice>
+ The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License,
+ Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
+ compliance with the License. You should have received a copy of the
+ Erlang Public License along with this software. If not, it can be
+ retrieved online at http://www.erlang.org/.
+
+ Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
+ basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
+ the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
+ under the License.
+
+ </legalnotice>
+
+ <title>Creating Certificates</title>
+ <prepared>UAB/F/P Peter H&ouml;gfeldt</prepared>
+ <docno></docno>
+ <date>2003-06-16</date>
+ <rev>A</rev>
+ <file>create_certs.xml</file>
+ </header>
+ <p>Here we consider the creation of example certificates.
+ </p>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>The openssl Command</title>
+ <p>The <c>openssl</c> command is a utility that comes with the
+ OpenSSL distribution. It provides a variety of subcommands. Each
+ subcommand is invoked as</p>
+ <code type="none"><![CDATA[
+ openssl subcmd <options and arguments> ]]></code>
+ <p>where <c>subcmd</c> denotes the subcommand in question.
+ </p>
+ <p>We shall use the following subcommands to create certificates for
+ the purpose of testing Erlang/OTP SSL:
+ </p>
+ <list type="bulleted">
+ <item><em>req</em> to create certificate requests and a
+ self-signed certificates,
+ </item>
+ <item><em>ca</em> to create certificates from certificate requests.</item>
+ </list>
+ <p>We create the following certificates:
+ </p>
+ <list type="bulleted">
+ <item>the <em>erlangCA</em> root certificate (a self-signed
+ certificate), </item>
+ <item>the <em>otpCA</em> certificate signed by the <em>erlangCA</em>, </item>
+ <item>a client certificate signed by the <em>otpCA</em>, and</item>
+ <item>a server certificate signed by the <em>otpCA</em>.</item>
+ </list>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>The openssl configuration file</title>
+ <p>An <c>openssl</c> configuration file consist of a number of
+ sections, where each section starts with one line containing
+ <c>[ section_name ]</c>, where <c>section_name</c> is the name
+ of the section. The first section of the file is either
+ unnamed, or is named <c>[ default ]</c>. For further details
+ see the OpenSSL config(5) manual page.
+ </p>
+ <p>The required sections for the subcommands we are going to
+ use are as follows:
+ </p>
+ <table>
+ <row>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle">subcommand</cell>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle">required/default section</cell>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle">override command line option</cell>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle">configuration file option</cell>
+ </row>
+ <row>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle">req</cell>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle">[req]</cell>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle">-</cell>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle"><c>-config FILE</c></cell>
+ </row>
+ <row>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle">ca</cell>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle">[ca]</cell>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle"><c>-name section</c></cell>
+ <cell align="left" valign="middle"><c>-config FILE</c></cell>
+ </row>
+ <tcaption>openssl subcommands to use</tcaption>
+ </table>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Creating the Erlang root CA</title>
+ <p>The Erlang root CA is created with the command</p>
+ <code type="none">
+\011openssl req -new -x509 -config /some/path/req.cnf \\
+\011 -keyout /some/path/key.pem -out /some/path/cert.pem </code>
+ <p>where the option <c>-new</c> indicates that we want to create
+ a new certificate request and the option <c>-x509</c> implies
+ that a self-signed certificate is created.
+ </p>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Creating the OTP CA</title>
+ <p>The OTP CA is created by first creating a certificate request
+ with the command</p>
+ <code type="none">
+\011openssl req -new -config /some/path/req.cnf \\
+\011 -keyout /some/path/key.pem -out /some/path/req.pem </code>
+ <p>and the ask the Erlang CA to sign it:</p>
+ <code type="none">
+\011openssl ca -batch -notext -config /some/path/req.cnf \\
+\011 -extensions ca_cert -in /some/path/req.pem -out /some/path/cert.pem </code>
+ <p>where the option <c>-extensions</c> refers to a section in the
+ configuration file saying that it should create a CA certificate,
+ and not a plain user certificate.
+ </p>
+ <p>The <c>client</c> and <c>server</c> certificates are created
+ similarly, except that the option <c>-extensions</c> then has the
+ value <c>user_cert</c>.
+ </p>
+ </section>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>An Example</title>
+ <p>The following module <c>create_certs</c> is used by the Erlang/OTP
+ SSL application for generating certificates to be used in tests. The
+ source code is also found in <c>ssl-X.Y.Z/examples/certs/src</c>.
+ </p>
+ <p>The purpose of the <c>create_certs:all/1</c> function is to make
+ it possible to provide from the <c>erl</c> command line, the
+ full path name of the <c>openssl</c> command.
+ </p>
+ <p>Note that the module creates temporary OpenSSL configuration files
+ for the <c>req</c> and <c>ca</c> subcommands.
+ </p>
+ <codeinclude file="../../examples/certs/src/make_certs.erl" tag="" type="erl"></codeinclude>
+ </section>
+</chapter>
+
+