Introduction to OpenSSL, part 3 -- Endpoint server certificate

Dr. Rahul Remanan

​CEO, Moad Computer

Discussed in this article are the steps to generate an endpoint server certificate using the intermediate certificate authority (CA) certificate.

Please feel free to check out the part 1 of the introduction to OpenSSL series where steps to generate a root CA certificate are described. In part 2 of the series, the steps to generate the intermediate CA certificate are described.

Also, please note that the passwords and the method to pass them to OpenSSL used here are for educational purposes alone. They are very weak and are visible using tools such as ```ps```.

It is important to update the passwords as well as the technique used for passing them accordingly, in production.

Generate user key

Generate the endpoint server certificate key.

Create certificate signing request

Generate a certificate signing request for the endpoint server certificate.

Create the endpoint server certificate

Using the ```server_cert``` OpenSSL extension, a server certificate is generated using the intermediate CA certificate. The password passed here is the password for used to create the intermediate CA certificate.

Inspect the contents of the certificate

Verify the certificate using the CA certificate chain

Appendix

The configuration file ```.ini``` used for generating the endpoint server certificate.