X509V3_CONFIG(5ossl) OpenSSL X509V3_CONFIG(5ossl) NAME x509v3_config - X509 V3 certificate extension configuration format DESCRIPTION Several OpenSSL commands can add extensions to a certificate or certificate request based on the contents of a configuration file and CLI options such as -addext. The syntax of configuration files is described in config(5). The commands typically have an option to specify the name of the configura- tion file, and a section within that file; see the documentation of the in- dividual command for details. This page uses extensions as the name of the section, when needed in exam- ples. Each entry in the extension section takes the form: name = [critical, ]value(s) If critical is present then the extension will be marked as critical. If multiple entries are processed for the same extension name, later en- tries override earlier ones with the same name. The format of values depends on the value of name, many have a type-value pairing where the type and value are separated by a colon. There are four main types of extension: string multi-valued raw arbitrary Each is described in the following paragraphs. String extensions simply have a string which contains either the value it- self or how it is obtained. Multi-valued extensions have a short form and a long form. The short form is a comma-separated list of names and values: basicConstraints = critical, CA:true, pathlen:1 The long form allows the values to be placed in a separate section: [extensions] basicConstraints = critical, @basic_constraints [basic_constraints] CA = true pathlen = 1 Both forms are equivalent. If an extension is multi-value and a field value must contain a comma the long form must be used otherwise the comma would be misinterpreted as a field separator. For example: subjectAltName = URI:ldap://somehost.com/CN=foo,OU=bar will produce an error but the equivalent form: [extensions] subjectAltName = @subject_alt_section [subject_alt_section] subjectAltName = URI:ldap://somehost.com/CN=foo,OU=bar is valid. OpenSSL does not support multiple occurrences of the same field within a section. In this example: [extensions] subjectAltName = @alt_section [alt_section] email = steve@example.com email = steve@example.org will only recognize the last value. To specify multiple values append a numeric identifier, as shown here: [extensions] subjectAltName = @alt_section [alt_section] email.1 = steve@example.com email.2 = steve@example.org The syntax of raw extensions is defined by the source code that parses the extension but should be documented. See "Certificate Policies" for an ex- ample of a raw extension. If an extension type is unsupported, then the arbitrary extension syntax must be used, see the "ARBITRARY EXTENSIONS" section for more details. STANDARD EXTENSIONS The following sections describe the syntax of each supported extension. They do not define the semantics of the extension. Basic Constraints This is a multi-valued extension which indicates whether a certificate is a CA certificate. The first value is CA followed by TRUE or FALSE. If CA is TRUE then an optional pathlen name followed by a nonnegative value can be included. For example: basicConstraints = CA:TRUE basicConstraints = CA:FALSE basicConstraints = critical, CA:TRUE, pathlen:1 A CA certificate must include the basicConstraints name with the CA parame- ter set to TRUE. An end-user certificate must either have CA:FALSE or omit the extension entirely. The pathlen parameter specifies the maximum number of CAs that can appear below this one in a chain. A pathlen of zero means the CA cannot sign any sub-CA's, and can only sign end-entity certificates. Key Usage Key usage is a multi-valued extension consisting of a list of names of the permitted key usages. The defined values are: "digitalSignature", "nonRe- pudiation" (with an alternative name "contentCommitment"), "keyEncipher- ment", "dataEncipherment", "keyAgreement", "keyCertSign", "cRLSign", "enci- pherOnly", and "decipherOnly". Examples: keyUsage = digitalSignature, nonRepudiation keyUsage = digitalSignature, contentCommitment keyUsage = critical, keyCertSign Extended Key Usage This extension consists of a list of values indicating purposes for which the certificate public key can be used. Each value can be either a short text name or an OID. The following text names, and their intended meaning, are known: Value Meaning according to RFC 5280 etc. ----- ---------------------------------- serverAuth SSL/TLS WWW Server Authentication clientAuth SSL/TLS WWW Client Authentication codeSigning Code Signing emailProtection E-mail Protection (S/MIME) timeStamping Trusted Timestamping OCSPSigning OCSP Signing ipsecIKE ipsec Internet Key Exchange msCodeInd Microsoft Individual Code Signing (authenticode) msCodeCom Microsoft Commercial Code Signing (authenticode) msCTLSign Microsoft Trust List Signing msEFS Microsoft Encrypted File System While IETF RFC 5280 says that id-kp-serverAuth and id-kp-clientAuth are only for WWW use, in practice they are used for all kinds of TLS clients and servers, and this is what OpenSSL assumes as well. Examples: extendedKeyUsage = critical, codeSigning, 1.2.3.4 extendedKeyUsage = serverAuth, clientAuth Subject Key Identifier The Subject Key Identifier (SKID) extension takes three possible forms: noneNo SKID extension will be included. hashThe process specified in RFC 5280 section 4.2.1.2. (1) is followed: The keyIdentifier is composed of the 160-bit SHA-1 hash of the value of the BIT STRING subjectPublicKey (excluding the tag, length, and number of unused bits). A hex string (possibly with ":" separating bytes) The specified value is used directly. This choice is strongly discour- aged. See openssl-x509(1), openssl-req(1), and openssl-ca(1) documentation for further details relevant to each of the command-line utilities. Example: subjectKeyIdentifier = hash Authority Key Identifier The Authority Key Identifier (SKID) extension takes two different forms. The value none indicates that no AKID shall be included. Otherwise, the value syntax is that of a comma-separated list of either or both of the keyid or issuer keywords. The keyid keyword asks that the AKID include the issuer's subject key iden- tifier. The issuer keyword asks that the AKID include the serial number and issuer distinguished name (grandparent name of subject certificate) of the issuer certificate. Unless qualified with "always" (as described below), these are added only as a fallback if the keyid is not requested, or no SKID was available in the issuer certificate. Either or both keywords can be suffixed with an optional qualifier, which can be either "always" or "nonss". If the qualifier is present, it is sep- arated from the keyword by a colon (":"). The "always" qualifier makes that AKID element mandatory, an error is raised if that element cannot be included. The issuer certificate's issuer name and serial number are no longer a fallback when the always qualifier is used. The "nonss" qualifier makes that AKID element further conditional on the certificate not being self-signed. When creating a self-signed certificate, be sure to specify a SKID exten- sion if you want to have a mandatory ("always" qualified) keyid in the AKID extension. See openssl-x509(1), openssl-req(1), and openssl-ca(1) for further details relevant to that specific command-line utility. Examples: # Keyid preferred, otherwise issuer name & serial authorityKeyIdentifier = keyid, issuer # As above, but skip the extension entirely if self-signed authorityKeyIdentifier = keyid:nonss, issuer:nonss # Keyid when possible, issuer name & serial always authorityKeyIdentifier = keyid, issuer:always # Keyid when possible, issuer as fallback when not self-signed authorityKeyIdentifier = keyid, issuer:nonss Subject Alternative Name This is a multi-valued extension that supports several types of name iden- tifier, including email (an email address), URI (a uniform resource indica- tor), DNS (a DNS domain name), RID (a registered ID: OBJECT IDENTIFIER), IP (an IP address), dirName (a distinguished name), and otherName. The syntax of each is described in the following paragraphs. The email option has two special values. "copy" will automatically include any email addresses contained in the certificate subject name in the exten- sion. "move" will automatically move any email addresses from the certifi- cate subject name to the extension. The IP address used in the IP option can be in either IPv4 or IPv6 format. The value of dirName is specifies the configuration section containing the distinguished name to use, as a set of name-value pairs. Multi-valued AVAs can be formed by prefacing the name with a + character. The value of otherName can include arbitrary data associated with an OID; the value should be the OID followed by a semicolon and the content in specified using the syntax in ASN1_generate_nconf(3). Examples: subjectAltName = email:copy, email:my@example.com, URI:http://my.example.com/ subjectAltName = IP:192.168.7.1 subjectAltName = IP:13::17 subjectAltName = email:my@example.com, RID:1.2.3.4 subjectAltName = otherName:1.2.3.4;UTF8:some other identifier [extensions] subjectAltName = dirName:dir_sect [dir_sect] C = UK O = My Organization OU = My Unit CN = My Name Non-ASCII Email Address conforming the syntax defined in Section 3.3 of RFC 6531 are provided as otherName.SmtpUTF8Mailbox. According to RFC 8398, the email address should be provided as UTF8String. To enforce the valid repre- sentation in the certificate, the SmtpUTF8Mailbox should be provided as follows subjectAltName=@alts [alts] otherName = 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.8.9;FORMAT:UTF8,UTF8String:nonasciiname.example.com Issuer Alternative Name This extension supports most of the options of subject alternative name; it does not support email:copy. It also adds issuer:copy as an allowed value, which copies any subject alternative names from the issuer certificate, if possible. Example: issuerAltName = issuer:copy Authority Info Access This extension gives details about how to retrieve information that related to the certificate that the CA makes available. The syntax is access_id;lo- cation, where access_id is an object identifier (although only a few values are well-known) and location has the same syntax as subject alternative name (except that email:copy is not supported). Possible values for access_id include OCSP (OCSP responder), caIssuers (CA Issuers), ad_timestamping (AD Time Stamping), AD_DVCS (ad dvcs), caReposi- tory (CA Repository). Examples: authorityInfoAccess = OCSP;URI:http://ocsp.example.com/,caIssuers;URI:http://myca.example.com/ca.cer authorityInfoAccess = OCSP;URI:http://ocsp.example.com/ CRL distribution points This is a multi-valued extension whose values can be either a name-value pair using the same form as subject alternative name or a single value specifying the section name containing all the distribution point values. When a name-value pair is used, a DistributionPoint extension will be set with the given value as the fullName field as the distributionPoint value, and the reasons and cRLIssuer fields will be omitted. When a single option is used, the value specifies the section, and that section can have the following items: fullname The full name of the distribution point, in the same format as the sub- ject alternative name. relativename The value is taken as a distinguished name fragment that is set as the value of the nameRelativeToCRLIssuer field. CRLIssuer The value must in the same format as the subject alternative name. reasons A multi-value field that contains the reasons for revocation. The rec- ognized values are: "keyCompromise", "CACompromise", "affiliation- Changed", "superseded", "cessationOfOperation", "certificateHold", "privilegeWithdrawn", and "AACompromise". Only one of fullname or relativename should be specified. Simple examples: crlDistributionPoints = URI:http://example.com/myca.crl crlDistributionPoints = URI:http://example.com/myca.crl, URI:http://example.org/my.crl Full distribution point example: [extensions] crlDistributionPoints = crldp1_section [crldp1_section] fullname = URI:http://example.com/myca.crl CRLissuer = dirName:issuer_sect reasons = keyCompromise, CACompromise [issuer_sect] C = UK O = Organisation CN = Some Name Issuing Distribution Point This extension should only appear in CRLs. It is a multi-valued extension whose syntax is similar to the "section" pointed to by the CRL distribution points extension. The following names have meaning: fullname The full name of the distribution point, in the same format as the sub- ject alternative name. relativename The value is taken as a distinguished name fragment that is set as the value of the nameRelativeToCRLIssuer field. onlysomereasons A multi-value field that contains the reasons for revocation. The rec- ognized values are: "keyCompromise", "CACompromise", "affiliation- Changed", "superseded", "cessationOfOperation", "certificateHold", "privilegeWithdrawn", and "AACompromise". onlyuser, onlyCA, onlyAA, indirectCRL The value for each of these names is a boolean. Example: [extensions] issuingDistributionPoint = critical, @idp_section [idp_section] fullname = URI:http://example.com/myca.crl indirectCRL = TRUE onlysomereasons = keyCompromise, CACompromise Certificate Policies This is a raw extension that supports all of the defined fields of the cer- tificate extension. Policies without qualifiers are specified by giving the OID. Multiple policies are comma-separated. For example: certificatePolicies = 1.2.4.5, 1.1.3.4 To include policy qualifiers, use the "@section" syntax to point to a sec- tion that specifies all the information. The section referred to must include the policy OID using the name policyI- dentifier. cPSuri qualifiers can be included using the syntax: CPS.nnn = value where "nnn" is a number. userNotice qualifiers can be set using the syntax: userNotice.nnn = @notice The value of the userNotice qualifier is specified in the relevant section. This section can include explicitText, organization, and noticeNumbers op- tions. explicitText and organization are text strings, noticeNumbers is a comma separated list of numbers. The organization and noticeNumbers options (if included) must BOTH be present. Some software might require the ia5org option at the top level; this changes the encoding from Displaytext to IA5String. Example: [extensions] certificatePolicies = ia5org, 1.2.3.4, 1.5.6.7.8, @polsect [polsect] policyIdentifier = 1.3.5.8 CPS.1 = "http://my.host.example.com/" CPS.2 = "http://my.your.example.com/" userNotice.1 = @notice [notice] explicitText = "Explicit Text Here" organization = "Organisation Name" noticeNumbers = 1, 2, 3, 4 The character encoding of explicitText can be specified by prefixing the value with UTF8, BMP, or VISIBLE followed by colon. For example: [notice] explicitText = "UTF8:Explicit Text Here" Policy Constraints This is a multi-valued extension which consisting of the names requireEx- plicitPolicy or inhibitPolicyMapping and a non negative integer value. At least one component must be present. Example: policyConstraints = requireExplicitPolicy:3 Inhibit Any Policy This is a string extension whose value must be a non negative integer. Example: inhibitAnyPolicy = 2 Name Constraints This is a multi-valued extension. The name should begin with the word per- mitted or excluded followed by a ;. The rest of the name and the value fol- lows the syntax of subjectAltName except email:copy is not supported and the IP form should consist of an IP addresses and subnet mask separated by a /. Examples: nameConstraints = permitted;IP:192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0 nameConstraints = permitted;email:.example.com nameConstraints = excluded;email:.com OCSP No Check This is a string extension. It is parsed, but ignored. Example: noCheck = ignored TLS Feature (aka Must Staple) This is a multi-valued extension consisting of a list of TLS extension identifiers. Each identifier may be a number (0..65535) or a supported name. When a TLS client sends a listed extension, the TLS server is ex- pected to include that extension in its reply. The supported names are: status_request and status_request_v2. Example: tlsfeature = status_request DEPRECATED EXTENSIONS The following extensions are non standard, Netscape specific and largely obsolete. Their use in new applications is discouraged. Netscape String extensions Netscape Comment (nsComment) is a string extension containing a comment which will be displayed when the certificate is viewed in some browsers. Other extensions of this type are: nsBaseUrl, nsRevocationUrl, nsCaRevoca- tionUrl, nsRenewalUrl, nsCaPolicyUrl and nsSslServerName. Netscape Certificate Type This is a multi-valued extensions which consists of a list of flags to be included. It was used to indicate the purposes for which a certificate could be used. The basicConstraints, keyUsage and extended key usage exten- sions are now used instead. Acceptable values for nsCertType are: client, server, email, objsign, re- served, sslCA, emailCA, objCA. ARBITRARY EXTENSIONS If an extension is not supported by the OpenSSL code then it must be en- coded using the arbitrary extension format. It is also possible to use the arbitrary format for supported extensions. Extreme care should be taken to ensure that the data is formatted correctly for the given extension type. There are two ways to encode arbitrary extensions. The first way is to use the word ASN1 followed by the extension content us- ing the same syntax as ASN1_generate_nconf(3). For example: [extensions] 1.2.3.4 = critical, ASN1:UTF8String:Some random data 1.2.3.4.1 = ASN1:SEQUENCE:seq_sect [seq_sect] field1 = UTF8:field1 field2 = UTF8:field2 It is also possible to use the word DER to include the raw encoded data in any extension. 1.2.3.4 = critical, DER:01:02:03:04 1.2.3.4.1 = DER:01020304 The value following DER is a hex dump of the DER encoding of the extension Any extension can be placed in this form to override the default behaviour. For example: basicConstraints = critical, DER:00:01:02:03 WARNINGS There is no guarantee that a specific implementation will process a given extension. It may therefore be sometimes possible to use certificates for purposes prohibited by their extensions because a specific application does not recognize or honour the values of the relevant extensions. The DER and ASN1 options should be used with caution. It is possible to create invalid extensions if they are not used carefully. SEE ALSO openssl-req(1), openssl-ca(1), openssl-x509(1), ASN1_generate_nconf(3) HISTORY OpenSSL 4.0 updated the syntax of the subjectKeyIdentifier (SKID) and au- thorityKeyIdentifier (AKID) extensions, described above, to introduce the "nonss" qualifier for the keyid and issuer keywords. The command-line utilities no longer have specialised built-in logic to add these exten- sions, they are handled through configuration files and command-line op- tions just like any other extension. COPYRIGHT Copyright 2004-2026 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>. 4.0.2 2026-08-25 X509V3_CONFIG(5ossl)
NAME | DESCRIPTION | STANDARD EXTENSIONS | DEPRECATED EXTENSIONS | ARBITRARY EXTENSIONS | WARNINGS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | COPYRIGHT
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