OPENSSL-PKCS12(1SSL) OpenSSL OPENSSL-PKCS12(1SSL)
NAME
openssl-pkcs12 - PKCS#12 file command
SYNOPSIS
openssl pkcs12 [-help] [-passin arg] [-passout arg] [-password arg]
[-twopass] [-in filename|uri] [-out filename] [-nokeys] [-nocerts]
[-noout] [-legacy] [-engine id] [-provider name] [-provider-path path]
[-propquery propq] [-rand files] [-writerand file]
PKCS#12 input (parsing) options: [-info] [-nomacver] [-clcerts]
[-cacerts]
[-aes128] [-aes192] [-aes256] [-aria128] [-aria192] [-aria256]
[-camellia128] [-camellia192] [-camellia256] [-des] [-des3] [-idea]
[-noenc] [-nodes]
PKCS#12 output (export) options:
[-export] [-inkey filename|uri] [-certfile filename] [-passcerts arg]
[-chain] [-untrusted filename] [-CAfile file] [-no-CAfile] [-CApath
dir] [-no-CApath] [-CAstore uri] [-no-CAstore] [-name name] [-caname
name] [-CSP name] [-LMK] [-keyex] [-keysig] [-keypbe cipher] [-certpbe
cipher] [-descert] [-macalg digest] [-iter count] [-noiter]
[-nomaciter] [-maciter] [-nomac]
DESCRIPTION
This command allows PKCS#12 files (sometimes referred to as PFX files)
to be created and parsed. PKCS#12 files are used by several programs
including Netscape, MSIE and MS Outlook.
OPTIONS
There are a lot of options the meaning of some depends of whether a
PKCS#12 file is being created or parsed. By default a PKCS#12 file is
parsed. A PKCS#12 file can be created by using the -export option (see
below). The PKCS#12 export encryption and MAC options such as -certpbe
and -iter and many further options such as -chain are relevant only
with -export. Conversely, the options regarding encryption of private
keys when outputting PKCS#12 input are relevant only when the -export
option is not given.
The default encryption algorithm is AES-256-CBC with PBKDF2 for key
derivation.
When encountering problems loading legacy PKCS#12 files that involve,
for example, RC2-40-CBC, try using the -legacy option and, if needed,
the -provider-path option.
-help
Print out a usage message.
-passin arg
The password source for the input, and for encrypting any private
keys that are output. For more information about the format of arg
see openssl-passphrase-options(1).
-passout arg
The password source for output files.
-password arg
With -export, -password is equivalent to -passout, otherwise it is
equivalent to -passin.
-twopass
Prompt for separate integrity and encryption passwords: most
software always assumes these are the same so this option will
render such PKCS#12 files unreadable. Cannot be used in combination
with the options -password, -passin if importing from PKCS#12, or
-passout if exporting.
-nokeys
No private keys will be output.
-nocerts
No certificates will be output.
-noout
This option inhibits all credentials output, and so the input is
just verified.
-legacy
Use legacy mode of operation and automatically load the legacy
provider. If OpenSSL is not installed system-wide, it is necessary
to also use, for example, "-provider-path ./providers" or to set
the environment variable OPENSSL_MODULES to point to the directory
where the providers can be found.
In the legacy mode, the default algorithm for certificate
encryption is RC2_CBC or 3DES_CBC depending on whether the RC2
cipher is enabled in the build. The default algorithm for private
key encryption is 3DES_CBC. If the legacy option is not specified,
then the legacy provider is not loaded and the default encryption
algorithm for both certificates and private keys is AES_256_CBC
with PBKDF2 for key derivation.
-engine id
See "Engine Options" in openssl(1). This option is deprecated.
-provider name
-provider-path path
-propquery propq
See "Provider Options" in openssl(1), provider(7), and property(7).
-rand files, -writerand file
See "Random State Options" in openssl(1) for details.
PKCS#12 input (parsing) options
-in filename|uri
This specifies the input filename or URI. Standard input is used
by default. Without the -export option this must be PKCS#12 file
to be parsed. For use with the -export option see the "PKCS#12
output (export) options" section.
-out filename
The filename to write certificates and private keys to, standard
output by default. They are all written in PEM format.
-info
Output additional information about the PKCS#12 file structure,
algorithms used and iteration counts.
-nomacver
Don't attempt to verify the integrity MAC.
-clcerts
Only output client certificates (not CA certificates).
-cacerts
Only output CA certificates (not client certificates).
-aes128, -aes192, -aes256
Use AES to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-aria128, -aria192, -aria256
Use ARIA to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-camellia128, -camellia192, -camellia256
Use Camellia to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-des
Use DES to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-des3
Use triple DES to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-idea
Use IDEA to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-noenc
Don't encrypt private keys at all.
-nodes
This option is deprecated since OpenSSL 3.0; use -noenc instead.
PKCS#12 output (export) options
-export
This option specifies that a PKCS#12 file will be created rather
than parsed.
-out filename
This specifies filename to write the PKCS#12 file to. Standard
output is used by default.
-in filename|uri
This specifies the input filename or URI. Standard input is used
by default. With the -export option this is a file with
certificates and a key, or a URI that refers to a key accessed via
an engine. The order of credentials in a file doesn't matter but
one private key and its corresponding certificate should be
present. If additional certificates are present they will also be
included in the PKCS#12 output file.
-inkey filename|uri
The private key input for PKCS12 output. If this option is not
specified then the input file (-in argument) must contain a private
key. If no engine is used, the argument is taken as a file. If
the -engine option is used or the URI has prefix
"org.openssl.engine:" then the rest of the URI is taken as key
identifier for the given engine.
-certfile filename
An input file with extra certificates to be added to the PKCS#12
output if the -export option is given.
-passcerts arg
The password source for certificate input such as -certfile and
-untrusted. For more information about the format of arg see
openssl-passphrase-options(1).
-chain
If this option is present then the certificate chain of the end
entity certificate is built and included in the PKCS#12 output
file. The end entity certificate is the first one read from the
-in file if no key is given, else the first certificate matching
the given key. The standard CA trust store is used for chain
building, as well as any untrusted CA certificates given with the
-untrusted option.
-untrusted filename
An input file of untrusted certificates that may be used for chain
building, which is relevant only when a PKCS#12 file is created
with the -export option and the -chain option is given as well.
Any certificates that are actually part of the chain are added to
the output.
-CAfile file, -no-CAfile, -CApath dir, -no-CApath, -CAstore uri,
-no-CAstore
See "Trusted Certificate Options" in
openssl-verification-options(1) for details.
-name friendlyname
This specifies the "friendly name" for the certificates and private
key. This name is typically displayed in list boxes by software
importing the file.
-caname friendlyname
This specifies the "friendly name" for other certificates. This
option may be used multiple times to specify names for all
certificates in the order they appear. Netscape ignores friendly
names on other certificates whereas MSIE displays them.
-CSP name
Write name as a Microsoft CSP name. The password source for the
input, and for encrypting any private keys that are output. For
more information about the format of arg see
openssl-passphrase-options(1).
-LMK
Add the "Local Key Set" identifier to the attributes.
-keyex|-keysig
Specifies that the private key is to be used for key exchange or
just signing. This option is only interpreted by MSIE and similar
MS software. Normally "export grade" software will only allow 512
bit RSA keys to be used for encryption purposes but arbitrary
length keys for signing. The -keysig option marks the key for
signing only. Signing only keys can be used for S/MIME signing,
authenticode (ActiveX control signing) and SSL client
authentication, however, due to a bug only MSIE 5.0 and later
support the use of signing only keys for SSL client authentication.
-keypbe alg, -certpbe alg
These options allow the algorithm used to encrypt the private key
and certificates to be selected. Any PKCS#5 v1.5 or PKCS#12 PBE
algorithm name can be used (see "NOTES" section for more
information). If a cipher name (as output by "openssl list
-cipher-algorithms") is specified then it is used with PKCS#5 v2.0.
For interoperability reasons it is advisable to only use PKCS#12
algorithms.
Special value "NONE" disables encryption of the private key and
certificates.
-descert
Encrypt the certificates using triple DES. By default the private
key and the certificates are encrypted using AES-256-CBC unless the
'-legacy' option is used. If '-descert' is used with the '-legacy'
then both, the private key and the certificates are encrypted using
triple DES.
-macalg digest
Specify the MAC digest algorithm. If not included SHA256 will be
used.
-iter count
This option specifies the iteration count for the encryption key
and MAC. The default value is 2048.
To discourage attacks by using large dictionaries of common
passwords the algorithm that derives keys from passwords can have
an iteration count applied to it: this causes a certain part of the
algorithm to be repeated and slows it down. The MAC is used to
check the file integrity but since it will normally have the same
password as the keys and certificates it could also be attacked.
-noiter, -nomaciter
By default both encryption and MAC iteration counts are set to
2048, using these options the MAC and encryption iteration counts
can be set to 1, since this reduces the file security you should
not use these options unless you really have to. Most software
supports both MAC and encryption iteration counts. MSIE 4.0
doesn't support MAC iteration counts so it needs the -nomaciter
option.
-maciter
This option is included for compatibility with previous versions,
it used to be needed to use MAC iterations counts but they are now
used by default.
-nomac
Do not attempt to provide the MAC integrity. This can be useful
with the FIPS provider as the PKCS12 MAC requires PKCS12KDF which
is not an approved FIPS algorithm and cannot be supported by the
FIPS provider.
NOTES
Although there are a large number of options most of them are very
rarely used. For PKCS#12 file parsing only -in and -out need to be used
for PKCS#12 file creation -export and -name are also used.
If none of the -clcerts, -cacerts or -nocerts options are present then
all certificates will be output in the order they appear in the input
PKCS#12 files. There is no guarantee that the first certificate present
is the one corresponding to the private key. Certain software which
tries to get a private key and the corresponding certificate might
assume that the first certificate in the file is the one corresponding
to the private key, but that may not always be the case. Using the
-clcerts option will solve this problem by only outputting the
certificate corresponding to the private key. If the CA certificates
are required then they can be output to a separate file using the
-nokeys -cacerts options to just output CA certificates.
The -keypbe and -certpbe algorithms allow the precise encryption
algorithms for private keys and certificates to be specified. Normally
the defaults are fine but occasionally software can't handle triple DES
encrypted private keys, then the option -keypbe PBE-SHA1-RC2-40 can be
used to reduce the private key encryption to 40 bit RC2. A complete
description of all algorithms is contained in openssl-pkcs8(1).
Prior 1.1 release passwords containing non-ASCII characters were
encoded in non-compliant manner, which limited interoperability, in
first hand with Windows. But switching to standard-compliant password
encoding poses problem accessing old data protected with broken
encoding. For this reason even legacy encodings is attempted when
reading the data. If you use PKCS#12 files in production application
you are advised to convert the data, because implemented heuristic
approach is not MT-safe, its sole goal is to facilitate the data
upgrade with this command.
EXAMPLES
Parse a PKCS#12 file and output it to a PEM file:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -out file.pem
Output only client certificates to a file:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -clcerts -out file.pem
Don't encrypt the private key:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -out file.pem -noenc
Print some info about a PKCS#12 file:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -info -noout
Print some info about a PKCS#12 file in legacy mode:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -info -noout -legacy
Create a PKCS#12 file from a PEM file that may contain a key and
certificates:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in file.pem -out file.p12 -name "My PSE"
Include some extra certificates:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in file.pem -out file.p12 -name "My PSE" \
-certfile othercerts.pem
Export a PKCS#12 file with data from a certificate PEM file and from a
further PEM file containing a key, with default algorithms as in the
legacy provider:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in cert.pem -inkey key.pem -out file.p12 -legacy
SEE ALSO
openssl(1), openssl-pkcs8(1), ossl_store-file(7)
HISTORY
The -engine option was deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0. The -nodes option
was deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0, too; use -noenc instead.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2000-2022 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.
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
<https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.
3.0.13 2025-09-18 OPENSSL-PKCS12(1SSL)
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