Programmatically Create X509 Certificate using OpenSSL

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I have a C/C++ application and I need to create a X509 pem certificate containing both a public and private key. The certificate can be self signed, or unsigned, doesn't matter.

I want to do this inside an app, not from command line.

What OpenSSL functions will do this for me? Any sample code is a bonus!

pkix openssl x509 ssl-certificate
4 Answers

You'll need to familiarize yourself with the terminology and mechanisms first.

An X.509 certificate, by definition, does not include a private key. Instead, it is a CA-signed version of the public key (along with any attributes the CA puts into the signature). The PEM format really only supports separate storage of the key and the certificate - although you can then concatenate the two.

In any case, you'll need to invoke 20+ different functions of the OpenSSL API to create a key and a self-signed certificate. An example is in the OpenSSL source itself, in demos/x509/mkcert.c

For a more detailed answer, please see Nathan Osman's explanation below.

user_330060

Nathan Osman explained it greatly and fully, had the same problem to be solved in C++ so here is my small addition, cpp-style rewritten concept with a couple of caveats taken into account:

bool generateX509(const std::string& certFileName, const std::string& keyFileName, long daysValid)
{
    bool result = false;

    std::unique_ptr<BIO, void (*)(BIO *)> certFile  { BIO_new_file(certFileName.data(), "wb"), BIO_free_all  };
    std::unique_ptr<BIO, void (*)(BIO *)> keyFile { BIO_new_file(keyFileName.data(), "wb"), BIO_free_all };

    if (certFile && keyFile)
    {
        std::unique_ptr<RSA, void (*)(RSA *)> rsa { RSA_new(), RSA_free };
        std::unique_ptr<BIGNUM, void (*)(BIGNUM *)> bn { BN_new(), BN_free };

        BN_set_word(bn.get(), RSA_F4);
        int rsa_ok = RSA_generate_key_ex(rsa.get(), RSA_KEY_LENGTH, bn.get(), nullptr);

        if (rsa_ok == 1)
        {
            // --- cert generation ---
            std::unique_ptr<X509, void (*)(X509 *)> cert { X509_new(), X509_free };
            std::unique_ptr<EVP_PKEY, void (*)(EVP_PKEY *)> pkey { EVP_PKEY_new(), EVP_PKEY_free};

            // The RSA structure will be automatically freed when the EVP_PKEY structure is freed.
            EVP_PKEY_assign(pkey.get(), EVP_PKEY_RSA, reinterpret_cast<char*>(rsa.release()));
            ASN1_INTEGER_set(X509_get_serialNumber(cert.get()), 1); // serial number

            X509_gmtime_adj(X509_get_notBefore(cert.get()), 0); // now
            X509_gmtime_adj(X509_get_notAfter(cert.get()), daysValid * 24 * 3600); // accepts secs

            X509_set_pubkey(cert.get(), pkey.get());

            // 1 -- X509_NAME may disambig with wincrypt.h
            // 2 -- DO NO FREE the name internal pointer
            X509_name_st* name = X509_get_subject_name(cert.get());

            const uchar country[] = "RU";
            const uchar company[] = "MyCompany, PLC";
            const uchar common_name[] = "localhost";

            X509_NAME_add_entry_by_txt(name, "C",  MBSTRING_ASC, country, -1, -1, 0);
            X509_NAME_add_entry_by_txt(name, "O",  MBSTRING_ASC, company, -1, -1, 0);
            X509_NAME_add_entry_by_txt(name, "CN", MBSTRING_ASC, common_name, -1, -1, 0);

            X509_set_issuer_name(cert.get(), name);
            X509_sign(cert.get(), pkey.get(), EVP_sha256()); // some hash type here


            int ret  = PEM_write_bio_PrivateKey(keyFile.get(), pkey.get(), nullptr, nullptr, 0, nullptr, nullptr);
            int ret2 = PEM_write_bio_X509(certFile.get(), cert.get());

            result = (ret == 1) && (ret2 == 1); // OpenSSL return codes
        }
    }

    return result;
}

Of course, there should be more checks of function's return values, actually all of them should be checked but that would make a sample too "branchy" and is pretty easy to improve anyway.

user_28460680

Any chance of doing this via a system call from within your app? Several good reasons for doing this:

  • Licensing: Calling the openssl executable arguably separates it from your application and may provide certain advantages. Disclaimer: consult a lawyer on this.

  • Documentation: OpenSSL comes with phenomenal command-line documentation that greatly simplifies a potentially complicated tool.

  • Testability: you can exercise OpenSSL from the command line until you understand exactly how to create your certs. There are a lot of options; expect to spend about a day on this until you get all the details right. After that, it's trivial to incorporate the command into your app.

If you choose to use the API, check the openssl-dev developers' list on www.openssl.org.

Good luck!

Adam_Liss_291570
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