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Manual: openssl-ocsp

OPENSSL-OCSP(1SSL) OpenSSL OPENSSL-OCSP(1SSL)

NAME
openssl-ocsp - Online Certificate Status Protocol command

SYNOPSIS
OCSP Client
openssl ocsp [-help] [-out file] [-issuer file] [-cert file] [-no_certs] [-serial n] [-signer file] [-signkey file]
[-sign_other file] [-nonce] [-no_nonce] [-req_text] [-resp_text] [-text] [-reqout filename] [-respout filename]
[-reqin filename] [-respin filename] [-url URL] [-host host:port] [-path pathname] [-proxy
[http[s]://][userinfo@]host[:port][/path][?query][#fragment]] [-no_proxy addresses] [-header] [-timeout seconds]
[-VAfile file] [-validity_period n] [-status_age n] [-noverify] [-verify_other file] [-trust_other] [-no_intern]
[-no_signature_verify] [-no_cert_verify] [-no_chain] [-no_cert_checks] [-no_explicit] [-port num] [-ignore_err]

OCSP Server
openssl ocsp [-index file] [-CA file] [-rsigner file] [-rkey file] [-passin arg] [-rother file] [-rsigopt nm:v] [-rmd
digest] [-badsig] [-resp_no_certs] [-nmin n] [-ndays n] [-resp_key_id] [-nrequest n] [-multi process-count] [-rcid
digest] [-digest] [-CAfile file] [-no-CAfile] [-CApath dir] [-no-CApath] [-CAstore uri] [-no-CAstore]
[-allow_proxy_certs] [-attime timestamp] [-no_check_time] [-check_ss_sig] [-crl_check] [-crl_check_all]
[-explicit_policy] [-extended_crl] [-ignore_critical] [-inhibit_any] [-inhibit_map] [-partial_chain] [-policy arg]
[-policy_check] [-policy_print] [-purpose purpose] [-suiteB_128] [-suiteB_128_only] [-suiteB_192] [-trusted_first]
[-no_alt_chains] [-use_deltas] [-auth_level num] [-verify_depth num] [-verify_email email] [-verify_hostname
hostname] [-verify_ip ip] [-verify_name name] [-x509_strict] [-issuer_checks] [-provider name] [-provider-path path]
[-provparam [name:]key=value] [-propquery propq]

DESCRIPTION
The Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) enables applications to determine the (revocation) state of an
identified certificate (RFC 2560).

This command performs many common OCSP tasks. It can be used to print out requests and responses, create requests and
send queries to an OCSP responder and behave like a mini OCSP server itself.

OPTIONS
This command operates as either a client or a server. The options are described below, divided into those two modes.

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. The input can be in PEM, DER, or PKCS#12 format.

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 input can be in PEM, DER, or PKCS#12 format.

This option can be used multiple times. 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. The input can be in PEM, DER, or PKCS#12 format.

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 filename
Write out the DER-encoded OCSP request or response to filename. The output filename can be the same as the input
filename, which leads to replacing the file contents. Note that file I/O is not atomic. The output file is
truncated and then written.

-reqin file, -respin filename
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 host and optionally port and path via a 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. For details, see the -host and -path options described next.

-host host:port, -path pathname
If the -host option is present then the OCSP request is sent to the host host on port port. The host may be a
domain name or an IP (v4 or v6) address, such as 127.0.0.1 or "[::1]" for localhost. If it is an IPv6 address,
it must be enclosed in "[" and "]".

The -path option specifies the HTTP pathname to use or "/" by default. This is equivalent to specifying -url
with scheme http:// and the given host, port, and optional pathname.

-proxy [http[s]://][userinfo@]host[:port][/path][?query][#fragment]
The HTTP(S) proxy server to use for reaching the OCSP server unless -no_proxy applies, see below. If the host
string is an IPv6 address, it must be enclosed in "[" and "]". 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, path, query, and fragment 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
-provparam [name:]key=value
-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 certificates 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. The input can be in PEM, DER, or PKCS#12 format.

-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. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are possible. 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.

OCSP RESPONSE VERIFICATION
OCSP Response follows the rules specified in RFC2560.

Initially the OCSP responder certificate is located and the signature on the OCSP request checked using the responder
certificate's public key.

Then a normal certificate verify is performed on the OCSP responder certificate building up a certificate chain in
the process. The locations of the trusted certificates used to build the chain can be specified by the -CAfile,
-CApath or -CAstore options or they will be looked for in the standard OpenSSL certificates directory.

If the initial verify fails then the OCSP verify process halts with an error.

Otherwise the issuing CA certificate in the request is compared to the OCSP responder certificate: if there is a
match then the OCSP verify succeeds.

Otherwise the OCSP responder certificate's CA is checked against the issuing CA certificate in the request. If there
is a match and the OCSPSigning extended key usage is present in the OCSP responder certificate then the OCSP verify
succeeds.

Otherwise, if -no_explicit is not set the root CA of the OCSP responders CA is checked to see if it is trusted for
OCSP signing. If it is the OCSP verify succeeds.

If none of these checks is successful then the OCSP verify fails.

What this effectively means if that if the OCSP responder certificate is authorised directly by the CA it is issuing
revocation information about (and it is correctly configured) then verification will succeed.

If the OCSP responder is a "global responder" which can give details about multiple CAs and has its own separate
certificate chain then its root CA can be trusted for OCSP signing. For example:

openssl x509 -in ocspCA.pem -addtrust OCSPSigning -out trustedCA.pem

Alternatively the responder certificate itself can be explicitly trusted with the -VAfile option.

NOTES
As noted, most of the verify options are for testing or debugging purposes. Normally only the -CApath, -CAfile,
-CAstore and (if the responder is a 'global VA') -VAfile options need to be used.

The OCSP server is only useful for test and demonstration purposes: it is not really usable as a full OCSP responder.
It contains only a very simple HTTP request handling and can only handle the POST form of OCSP queries. It also
handles requests serially meaning it cannot respond to new requests until it has processed the current one. The text
index file format of revocation is also inefficient for large quantities of revocation data.

It is possible to run this command in responder mode via a CGI script using the -reqin and -respout options.

EXAMPLES
Create an OCSP request and write it to a file:

openssl ocsp -issuer issuer.pem -cert c1.pem -cert c2.pem -reqout req.der

Send a query to an OCSP responder with URL http://ocsp.myhost.com/ save the response to a file, print it out in text
form, and verify the response:

openssl ocsp -issuer issuer.pem -cert c1.pem -cert c2.pem \
-url http://ocsp.myhost.com/ -resp_text -respout resp.der

Read in an OCSP response and print out text form:

openssl ocsp -respin resp.der -text -noverify

OCSP server on port 8888 using a standard ca configuration, and a separate responder certificate. All requests and
responses are printed to a file.

openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -port 8888 -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
-text -out log.txt

As above but exit after processing one request:

openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -port 8888 -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
-nrequest 1

Query status information using an internally generated request:

openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
-issuer demoCA/cacert.pem -serial 1

Query status information using request read from a file, and write the response to a second file.

openssl ocsp -index demoCA/index.txt -rsigner rcert.pem -CA demoCA/cacert.pem
-reqin req.der -respout resp.der

HISTORY
The -no_alt_chains option was added in OpenSSL 1.1.0.

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-OCSP(1SSL)

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