http://how2ssl.com/articles/openssl_commands_and_tips/
OpenSSL is the de-facto tool for SSL on linux and other server systems. It providers both the library for creating SSL sockets, and a set of powerful tools for administrating an SSL enabled website. Following are a few common tasks you might need to perform with OpenSSL.
Obtaining a signed SSL certificate envolves a number of buisness verification procedures and a sumbition of what is called a CSR ("Certificate signing request"). To generate the CSR, execute the following command.
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:1024 -nodes -keyout key.pem -out req.pem
Lets review the command:
This command will run interactivly and ask you a number of questions, please note that your answers will be double and cross checked by your certificate authority and that your answers must match any other legal documents regarding the registration of your company. Following are tips for proper answers:
Fill in your companies two letter country code, consult wikipedia if you are unsure which code to use.
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:
State for US, large administrative district for other countries:
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:
City
Locality Name (eg, city) []:
Full company name, please copy this letter to letter from your companies registration forms. A difference such as using the sign & instead of the word "and" might cause your request to be rejected.
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:
Company sub-division or a product name
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
Your domain name, or in case of wildcard certificates, use an astrisk, like this: *.mycompany.com
Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []:
Email to be displayed with the certificate
Email Address []:
Double check the information by using this command on your newly generated request:
openssl req -in req.pem -noout -text
Save your private key file, named key.pem, in a secure location. It will later be used to configure your web server. The request file, req.pem, should be sent to your certificate authority for signing.
You can generate a self-signed key for a development servers by following those steps:
Create an empty directory and step in to it. Execute the following command, please note that the backslash ("\") sign allow a single command to span over a number of lines. In our case it is used to fit the command in this document:
$ openssl req -x509 -days 365 -nodes -newkey rsa:1024 \ -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem
You can hit enter as an answer to all the questions to set the default except this one:
Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []:
type in the dns record used for your development server as an answer to this one.
Thats it, two new PEM files will be created, "cert.pem" containing your certificate and "key.pem" containing the self signed key.
You can use the OpenSSL built in client to connect to a web server and display the certificate chain. Replace your server address and port with your own:
$ openssl s_client -connect www.facebook.com:443 -showcerts
Here is a typical output, with the certificate chain displayed:
CONNECTED(00000003) depth=1 O = CA, OU = "CA", OU = CA, OU = CA verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate verify return:0 --- Certificate chain 0 s:/C=US/ST=California/L=Palo Alto/O=mysite/CN=mysite.com i:/O=CA/OU=CA/OU=CA/OU=CA -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIIDnzCCAwigAwIBAgIQCSGX4cDpzQPaNSQ2VhCGgTANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQUFADCB ujEfMB0GA1UEChMWVmVyaVNpZ24gVHJ1c3QgTmV0d29yazEXMBUGA1UECxMOVmVy aVNpZ24sIEluYy4xMzAxBgNVBAsTKlZlcmlTaWduIEludGVybmF0aW9uYWwgU2Vy A .... MANY LINES LIKE THAT .... .... MANY LINES LIKE THAT .... gjRaROuWGxfY25KebCQpoBW2PJp3S1JmqHHyxjk4mzr+tzWK0Qn+tlBUy9igtkIh VybjO+AxBZve1qyJIsVraz8wrw== -----END CERTIFICATE----- 1 s:/O=CA/OU=CA/OU=CA/OU=CA i:/C=US/O=CA/OU=CA -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIIDgzCCAuygAwIBAgIQRvzrurTQLw+SYJgjP5MHjzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQUFADBf MQswCQYDVQQGEwJVUzEXMBUGA1UEChMOVmVyaVNpZ24sIEluYy4xNzA1BgNVBAsT LkNsYXNzIDMgUHVibGljIFByaW1hcnkgQ2VydGlmaWNhdGlvbiBBdXRob3JpdHkw A .... MANY LINES LIKE THAT .... .... MANY LINES LIKE THAT .... OfamggNlEcS8vy2m9dk7CrWY+rN4uR7yK0xi1f2yeh3fM/1z+aXYLYwq6tH8sCi2 6UlIE0uDihtIeyT3ON5vQVS4q1drBt/HotSp9vE2YoCI8ot11oBx -----END CERTIFICATE----- --- Server certificate subject=/C=US/ST=California/L=Palo Alto/O=mysite/CN=mysite.com issuer=/O=CA/OU=CA/OU=CA/OU=CA --- No client certificate CA names sent --- SSL handshake has read 2007 bytes and written 343 bytes --- New, TLSv1/SSLv3, Cipher is RC4-MD5 Server public key is 1024 bit Secure Renegotiation IS NOT supported Compression: NONE Expansion: NONE SSL-Session: Protocol : SSLv3 Cipher : RC4-MD5 Session-ID: 244BE55....48F793 Session-ID-ctx: Master-Key: 18674D2....B3465946941C0C77DF2DE Key-Arg : None PSK identity: None PSK identity hint: None Start Time: 1325335498 Timeout : 7200 (sec) Verify return code: 20 (unable to get local issuer certificate) ---
you can copy parts of the output to a PEM file and further inspect them with the verify openssl command.