1ocsptool(1) User Commands ocsptool(1)
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6 ocsptool - GnuTLS OCSP tool
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9 ocsptool [-flags] [-flag [value]] [--option-name[[=| ]value]]
10 All arguments must be options.
12
15 On verification
16 Responses are typically signed/issued by designated certificates or
17 certificate authorities and thus this tool requires on verification the
18 certificate of the issuer or the full certificate chain in order to de‐
19 termine the appropriate signing authority. The specified certificate of
20 the issuer is assumed trusted.
21
23 -d number, --debug=number
24 Enable debugging. This option takes an integer number as its
25 argument. The value of number is constrained to being:
26 in the range 0 through 9999
27 Specifies the debug level.
29 -V, --verbose
31 More verbose output. This option may appear an unlimited number
32 of times.
33 --infile=file
36 Input file.
37 --outfile=string
40 Output file.
41 --ask [=server name|url]
44 Ask an OCSP/HTTP server on a certificate validity.
45 Connects to the specified HTTP OCSP server and queries on the
47 validity of the loaded certificate. Its argument can be a URL
48 or a plain server name. It can be combined with --load-chain,
49 where it checks all certificates in the provided chain, or with
50 --load-cert and --load-issuer options. The latter checks the
51 provided certificate against its specified issuer certificate.
52 -e, --verify-response
54 Verify response.
55 Verifies the provided OCSP response against the system trust an‐
57 chors (unless --load-trust is provided). It requires the --load-
58 signer or --load-chain options to obtain the signer of the OCSP
59 response.
60 -i, --request-info
62 Print information on a OCSP request.
63 Display detailed information on the provided OCSP request.
65 -j, --response-info
67 Print information on a OCSP response.
68 Display detailed information on the provided OCSP response.
70 -q, --generate-request
72 Generates an OCSP request.
73 --nonce, --no-nonce
76 Use (or not) a nonce to OCSP request. The no-nonce form will
77 disable the option.
78 --load-chain=file
81 Reads a set of certificates forming a chain from file.
82 --load-issuer=file
85 Reads issuer's certificate from file.
86 --load-cert=file
89 Reads the certificate to check from file.
90 --load-trust=file
93 Read OCSP trust anchors from file. This option must not appear
94 in combination with any of the following options: load-signer.
95 When verifying an OCSP response read the trust anchors from the
97 provided file. When this is not provided, the system's trust an‐
98 chors will be used.
99 --load-signer=file
101 Reads the OCSP response signer from file. This option must not
102 appear in combination with any of the following options: load-
103 trust.
104 --inder, --no-inder
107 Use DER format for input certificates and private keys. The
108 no-inder form will disable the option.
109 --outder
112 Use DER format for output of responses (this is the default).
113 The output will be in DER encoded format. Unlike other GnuTLS
115 tools, this is the default for this tool
116 --outpem
118 Use PEM format for output of responses.
119 The output will be in PEM format.
121 -Q file, --load-request=file
123 Reads the DER encoded OCSP request from file.
124 -S file, --load-response=file
127 Reads the DER encoded OCSP response from file.
128 --ignore-errors
131 Ignore any verification errors.
132 --verify-allow-broken
135 Allow broken algorithms, such as MD5 for verification.
136 This can be combined with --verify-response.
138 -h, --help
140 Display usage information and exit.
141 -!, --more-help
143 Pass the extended usage information through a pager.
144 -v [{v|c|n --version [{v|c|n}]}]
146 Output version of program and exit. The default mode is `v', a
147 simple version. The `c' mode will print copyright information
148 and `n' will print the full copyright notice.
149
151 Print information about an OCSP request
152 To parse an OCSP request and print information about the content, the
154 -i or --request-info parameter may be used as follows. The -Q parame‐
155 ter specify the name of the file containing the OCSP request, and it
156 should contain the OCSP request in binary DER format.
157 $ ocsptool -i -Q ocsp-request.der
159 The input file may also be sent to standard input like this:
161 $ cat ocsp-request.der | ocsptool --request-info
163 Print information about an OCSP response
165 Similar to parsing OCSP requests, OCSP responses can be parsed using
167 the -j or --response-info as follows.
168 $ ocsptool -j -Q ocsp-response.der
170 $ cat ocsp-response.der | ocsptool --response-info
171 Generate an OCSP request
173 The -q or --generate-request parameters are used to generate an OCSP
175 request. By default the OCSP request is written to standard output in
176 binary DER format, but can be stored in a file using --outfile. To
177 generate an OCSP request the issuer of the certificate to check needs
178 to be specified with --load-issuer and the certificate to check with
179 --load-cert. By default PEM format is used for these files, although
180 --inder can be used to specify that the input files are in DER format.
181 $ ocsptool -q --load-issuer issuer.pem --load-cert client.pem --outfile ocsp-request.der
183 When generating OCSP requests, the tool will add an OCSP extension con‐
185 taining a nonce. This behaviour can be disabled by specifying
186 --no-nonce.
187 Verify signature in OCSP response
189 To verify the signature in an OCSP response the -e or --verify-response
191 parameter is used. The tool will read an OCSP response in DER format
192 from standard input, or from the file specified by --load-response.
193 The OCSP response is verified against a set of trust anchors, which are
194 specified using --load-trust. The trust anchors are concatenated cer‐
195 tificates in PEM format. The certificate that signed the OCSP response
196 needs to be in the set of trust anchors, or the issuer of the signer
197 certificate needs to be in the set of trust anchors and the OCSP Ex‐
198 tended Key Usage bit has to be asserted in the signer certificate.
199 $ ocsptool -e --load-trust issuer.pem --load-response ocsp-response.der
201 The tool will print status of verification.
203 Verify signature in OCSP response against given certificate
205 It is possible to override the normal trust logic if you know that a
207 certain certificate is supposed to have signed the OCSP response, and
208 you want to use it to check the signature. This is achieved using
209 --load-signer instead of --load-trust. This will load one certificate
210 and it will be used to verify the signature in the OCSP response. It
211 will not check the Extended Key Usage bit.
212 $ ocsptool -e --load-signer ocsp-signer.pem --load-response ocsp-response.der
214 This approach is normally only relevant in two situations. The first
216 is when the OCSP response does not contain a copy of the signer cer‐
217 tificate, so the --load-trust code would fail. The second is if you
218 want to avoid the indirect mode where the OCSP response signer certifi‐
219 cate is signed by a trust anchor.
220 Real-world example
222 Here is an example of how to generate an OCSP request for a certificate
224 and to verify the response. For illustration we'll use the blog.josef‐
225 sson.org host, which (as of writing) uses a certificate from CACert.
226 First we'll use gnutls-cli to get a copy of the server certificate
227 chain. The server is not required to send this information, but this
228 particular one is configured to do so.
229 $ echo | gnutls-cli -p 443 blog.josefsson.org --save-cert chain.pem
231 The saved certificates normally contain a pointer to where the OCSP re‐
233 sponder is located, in the Authority Information Access Information ex‐
234 tension. For example, from certtool -i < chain.pem there is this in‐
235 formation:
236 Authority Information Access Information (not critical):
238 Access Method: 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.48.1 (id-ad-ocsp)
239 Access Location URI: https://ocsp.CAcert.org/
240 This means that ocsptool can discover the servers to contact over HTTP.
242 We can now request information on the chain certificates.
243 $ ocsptool --ask --load-chain chain.pem
245 The request is sent via HTTP to the OCSP server address found in the
247 certificates. It is possible to override the address of the OCSP server
248 as well as ask information on a particular certificate using
249 --load-cert and --load-issuer.
250 $ ocsptool --ask https://ocsp.CAcert.org/ --load-chain chain.pem
252
255 One of the following exit values will be returned:
256 0 (EXIT_SUCCESS)
258 Successful program execution.
259 1 (EXIT_FAILURE)
261 The operation failed or the command syntax was not valid.
262 70 (EX_SOFTWARE)
264 libopts had an internal operational error. Please report it to
265 autogen-users@lists.sourceforge.net. Thank you.
266
268 certtool (1)
269
271 Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos, Simon Josefsson and others; see
272 /usr/share/doc/gnutls/AUTHORS for a complete list.
273
275 Copyright (C) 2000-2020 Free Software Foundation, and others all rights
276 reserved. This program is released under the terms of the GNU General
277 Public License, version 3 or later.
278
280 Please send bug reports to: bugs@gnutls.org
281
283 This manual page was AutoGen-erated from the ocsptool option defini‐
284 tions.
2853.7.2 29 May 2021 ocsptool(1)