Manual: openssl-format-options

OPENSSL-FORMAT-OPTIONS(1SSL)				   OpenSSL				OPENSSL-FORMAT-OPTIONS(1SSL)

NAME
       openssl-format-options - OpenSSL command input and output format options

SYNOPSIS
       openssl command [ options ... ] [ parameters ... ]

DESCRIPTION
       Several OpenSSL commands can take input or generate output in a variety of formats.

       Since OpenSSL 3.0 keys, single certificates, and CRLs can be read from files in any of the DER, PEM or P12 formats.
       Specifying their input format is no more needed and the openssl commands will automatically try all the possible
       formats. However if the DER or PEM input format is specified it will be enforced.

       In order to access a key via an engine the input format ENGINE may be used; alternatively the key identifier in the
        argument of the respective key option may be preceded by "org.openssl.engine:".  See "Engine Options" in
       openssl(1) for an example usage of the latter.

OPTIONS
   Format Options
       The options to specify the format are as follows.  Refer to the individual man page to see which options are
       accepted.

       -inform format, -outform format
	   The format of the input or output streams.

       -keyform format
	   Format of a private key input source.

       -CRLform format
	   Format of a CRL input source.

   Format Option Arguments
       The possible format arguments are described below.  Both uppercase and lowercase are accepted.

       The list of acceptable format arguments, and the default, is described in each command documentation.

       DER A binary format, encoded or parsed according to Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER) of the ASN.1 data language.

       ENGINE
	   Used	 to  specify  that  the	 cryptographic	material  is  in an OpenSSL engine.  An engine must be configured or
	   specified using the -engine option.	A password or PIN may be supplied to the engine using the -passin option.

       P12 A DER-encoded file containing a PKCS#12 object.  It might be	 necessary  to	provide	 a  decryption	password  to
	   retrieve the private key.

       PEM A  text  format defined in IETF RFC 1421 and IETF RFC 7468. Briefly, this is a block of base-64 encoding (defined
	   in IETF RFC 4648), with specific lines used to mark the start and end:

	    Text before the BEGIN line is ignored.
	    ----- BEGIN object-type -----
	    OT43gQKBgQC/2OHZoko6iRlNOAQ/tMVFNq7fL81GivoQ9F1U0Qr+DH3ZfaH8eIkX
	    xT0ToMPJUzWAn8pZv0snA0um6SIgvkCuxO84OkANCVbttzXImIsL7pFzfcwV/ERK
	    UM6j0ZuSMFOCr/lGPAoOQU0fskidGEHi1/kW+suSr28TqsyYZpwBDQ==
	    ----- END object-type -----
	    Text after the END line is also ignored

	   The object-type must match the type of object that is expected.  For example a "BEGIN X509 CERTIFICATE" will	 not
	   match if the command is trying to read a private key. The types supported include:

	    ANY PRIVATE KEY
	    CERTIFICATE
	    CERTIFICATE REQUEST
	    CMS
	    DH PARAMETERS
	    DSA PARAMETERS
	    DSA PUBLIC KEY
	    EC PARAMETERS
	    EC PRIVATE KEY
	    ECDSA PUBLIC KEY
	    ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY
	    PARAMETERS
	    PKCS #7 SIGNED DATA
	    PKCS7
	    PRIVATE KEY
	    PUBLIC KEY
	    RSA PRIVATE KEY
	    SSL SESSION PARAMETERS
	    TRUSTED CERTIFICATE
	    X509 CRL
	    X9.42 DH PARAMETERS

	   The following legacy object-type's are also supported for compatibility with earlier releases:

	    DSA PRIVATE KEY
	    NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST
	    RSA PUBLIC KEY
	    X509 CERTIFICATE

       SMIME
	   An  S/MIME  object  as  described in IETF RFC 8551.	Earlier versions were known as CMS and are compatible.	Note
	   that the parsing is simple and might fail to parse some legal data.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright 2000-2021 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

       Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License").  You may not use this  file  except  in  compliance  with	 the
       License.	    You	   can	  obtain   a   copy   in   the	 file	LICENSE	  in   the   source   distribution   or	  at
       .

3.5.5							 2026-01-27				OPENSSL-FORMAT-OPTIONS(1SSL)