gpkfr/tls-gen

Generates self-signed TLS/SSL certificates useful for development

TLS/SSL Certificate Generator

These certificates are self-signed and supposed to be used for development.

The project is extracted from a number of RabbitMQ test suites.

What It Does

tls-gen generates a self-signed Certificate Authority (CA) certificate and 2 pairs of keys: client and server, with a single command. It can also generate a chain of CA certificates.

Use these certificates in development and QA environments. They are self-signed and not intended to be used in production.

Private keys can be generated using RSA as well as ECC.

Prerequisites

tls-gen requires

• openssl
• Python 3 in PATH as python3 (Python 2.7 is not and will not be supported)
• make

Usage

Certificate authorities (CAs) and certificates can form chains. tls-gen provides different "profiles", for example:

• Profile 1: a root CA with leaf certificate/key pairs signed by it
• Profile 2: a root CA with multiple shared intermediary certificates and leaf pairs signed by the intermediaries
• Profile 3: a root CA with two intermediary certificates (one for server, one for client) and leaf pairs signed by the intermediaries

Each profile has a sub-directory in repository root. All profiles use the same make targets and directory layouts that are as close as possible.

Profile 1 (Basic Profile)

To generate a CA, client and server private key/certificate pairs, run make from the basic profile directory with PASSWORD environment variable providing the passphrase:

cd [path to tls-gen repository]/basic
# pass a password using the PASSWORD variable
make PASSWORD=bunnies
# results will be under the ./result directory
ls -lha ./result

Generated CA certificate as well as client and server certificate and private keys will be under the result directory.

It possible to use ECC for leaf keys:

cd [path to tls-gen repository]/basic
# pass a password using the PASSWORD variable
make PASSWORD=bunnies USE_ECC=true ECC_CURVE="prime256v1"
# results will be under the ./result directory
ls -lha ./result

The list of available curves can be obtained with

openssl ecparam -list_curves

Profile 2 (Shared Chained Certificates)

To generate a root CA, 2 shared intermediate CAs, client and server key/certificate pairs, run make from the two_shared_intermediates directory:

make PASSWORD=bunnies
# results will be under the ./result directory
ls -lha ./result

It possible to use ECC for intermediate and leaf keys:

make PASSWORD=bunnies USE_ECC=true ECC_CURVE="prime256v1"
# results will be under the ./result directory
ls -lha ./result

The list of available curves can be obtained with

openssl ecparam -list_curves

Profile 3 (Separate Certificate Chains)

To generate a root CA, 2 intermediate CAs (one for server, one for client), client and server key/certificate pairs, run make from the separate_intermediates directory:

make PASSWORD=bunnies
# results will be under the ./result directory
ls -lha ./result

It possible to use ECC for intermediate and leaf keys:

make PASSWORD=bunnies USE_ECC=true ECC_CURVE="prime256v1"
# results will be under the ./result directory
ls -lha ./result

The list of available curves can be obtained with

openssl ecparam -list_curves

Regeneration

To generate a new set of keys and certificates, use

make regen PASSWORD=bunnies

The regen target accepts the same variables as gen (default target) above.

Verification

You can verify the generated client and server certificates against the generated CA one with

make verify

Overriding CN (Common Name)

By default, certificate's CN (Common Name) is calculated using hostname.

It is possible to override CN with an environment variable:

make PASSWORD=bunnies CN=secure.mydomain.local

Overriding Number of Private Key Bits

It is possible to override the number of private key bits with an environment variable:

make PASSWORD=bunnies NUMBER_OF_PRIVATE_KEY_BITS=4096

Certificate Information

To display information about generated certificates, use

make info

This assumes the certificates were previously generated.

License

Mozilla Public License, see LICENSE.