class OpenSSL::X509::Certificate

Implementation of an X.509 certificate as specified in RFC 5280. Provides access to a certificate’s attributes and allows certificates to be read from a string, but also supports the creation of new certificates from scratch.

Reading a certificate from a file

Certificate is capable of handling DER-encoded certificates and certificates encoded in OpenSSL’s PEM format.

raw = File.binread "cert.cer" # DER- or PEM-encoded
certificate = OpenSSL::X509::Certificate.new raw

Saving a certificate to a file

A certificate may be encoded in DER format

cert = ...
File.open("cert.cer", "wb") { |f| f.print cert.to_der }

or in PEM format

cert = ...
File.open("cert.pem", "wb") { |f| f.print cert.to_pem }

X.509 certificates are associated with a private/public key pair, typically a RSA, DSA or ECC key (see also OpenSSL::PKey::RSA, OpenSSL::PKey::DSA and OpenSSL::PKey::EC), the public key itself is stored within the certificate and can be accessed in form of an OpenSSL::PKey. Certificates are typically used to be able to associate some form of identity with a key pair, for example web servers serving pages over HTTPs use certificates to authenticate themselves to the user.

The public key infrastructure (PKI) model relies on trusted certificate authorities (ā€œroot CAsā€) that issue these certificates, so that end users need to base their trust just on a selected few authorities that themselves again vouch for subordinate CAs issuing their certificates to end users.

The OpenSSL::X509 module provides the tools to set up an independent PKI, similar to scenarios where the ā€˜openssl’ command line tool is used for issuing certificates in a private PKI.

Creating a root CA certificate and an end-entity certificate

First, we need to create a ā€œself-signedā€ root certificate. To do so, we need to generate a key first. Please note that the choice of ā€œ1ā€ as a serial number is considered a security flaw for real certificates. Secure choices are integers in the two-digit byte range and ideally not sequential but secure random numbers, steps omitted here to keep the example concise.

root_key = OpenSSL::PKey::RSA.new 2048 # the CA's public/private key
root_ca = OpenSSL::X509::Certificate.new
root_ca.version = 2 # cf. RFC 5280 - to make it a "v3" certificate
root_ca.serial = 1
root_ca.subject = OpenSSL::X509::Name.parse "/DC=org/DC=ruby-lang/CN=Ruby CA"
root_ca.issuer = root_ca.subject # root CA's are "self-signed"
root_ca.public_key = root_key.public_key
root_ca.not_before = Time.now
root_ca.not_after = root_ca.not_before + 2 * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 # 2 years validity
ef = OpenSSL::X509::ExtensionFactory.new
ef.subject_certificate = root_ca
ef.issuer_certificate = root_ca
root_ca.add_extension(ef.create_extension("basicConstraints","CA:TRUE",true))
root_ca.add_extension(ef.create_extension("keyUsage","keyCertSign, cRLSign", true))
root_ca.add_extension(ef.create_extension("subjectKeyIdentifier","hash",false))
root_ca.add_extension(ef.create_extension("authorityKeyIdentifier","keyid:always",false))
root_ca.sign(root_key, OpenSSL::Digest.new('SHA256'))

The next step is to create the end-entity certificate using the root CA certificate.

key = OpenSSL::PKey::RSA.new 2048
cert = OpenSSL::X509::Certificate.new
cert.version = 2
cert.serial = 2
cert.subject = OpenSSL::X509::Name.parse "/DC=org/DC=ruby-lang/CN=Ruby certificate"
cert.issuer = root_ca.subject # root CA is the issuer
cert.public_key = key.public_key
cert.not_before = Time.now
cert.not_after = cert.not_before + 1 * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 # 1 years validity
ef = OpenSSL::X509::ExtensionFactory.new
ef.subject_certificate = cert
ef.issuer_certificate = root_ca
cert.add_extension(ef.create_extension("keyUsage","digitalSignature", true))
cert.add_extension(ef.create_extension("subjectKeyIdentifier","hash",false))
cert.sign(root_key, OpenSSL::Digest.new('SHA256'))