9. Certificates

All certificates from the database are displayed in a tree view reflecting the chain dependencies. If there is a CA certificate and several client certificates signed by this CA, the client certificates can be shown by clicking on the plus sign of the CA certificate.

9.1 CA certificates

XCA will recognize CA certificates if the CA flag in the Basic Constraints is set to true. If there is a corresponding private key, the CA sub-menu in the context-menu will be enabled.

For building the chains the CA flag is disregarded, because there are some CAs without this flag. Instead it considers the issuer name and the signature to decide which certificate is the issuer. In case of more than one possible issuer, the one with the latest expiry date will be used as issuer to collect all issued certificates.

9.2 Generating certificates

After clicking on the New Certificate button the Certificate input dialog will be started to ask all needed information for generating a new Certificate. See: The Certificate input dialog Certificate creation can also be invoked by the context menu of the certificate list background or by the context menu of the request. In this case the Certificate input dialog is preset with the request to be signed.

If a CA certificate is selected in the certificate list, this certificate will be preselected as issuing certificate.

9.3 Certificate details

The signer is the internal name of the issuers certificate, SELF SIGNED if it is self signed or SIGNER UNKNOWN if the issuer's certificate is not available. The validity is set to valid if the certificate's dates are valid or to Not valid if they are not, compared to the internal time and date of the OS.

If the certificate is revoked, the revocation date will be shown instead.

On the Subject and Issuer tab the distinguished name is also displayed in a format defined in RFC2253 for copy&paste.

9.4 Certificate Export

• Clipboard Copy all selected certificates to the clipboard as PEM file
• File Export to external file. The filename can be selected in the export dialog and the Export format:
  • PEM - PEM encoded
  • PEM with Certificate chain - PEM encoded certificate and all issuers up to the root certificate in one file
  • PEM all trusted Certificates - List of all PEM encoded certificates that are marked as Always trusted (usually all self-signed certificates) in one file for e.g. apache as trusted certificate store.
  • PEM all Certificates - All PEM encoded certificates in one file.
  • DER - DER encoded certificate.
  • PKCS#7 - DER encoded PKCS#7 structure containing the certificate.
  • PKCS#7 with Certificate chain - DER encoded PKCS#7 structure containing the certificate and all issuers up to the root certificate.
  • PKCS#7 all trusted Certificates - DER encoded PKCS#7 structure containing all certificates that are marked as Always trusted
  • PKCS#7 all Certificates - DER encoded PKCS#7 structure containing all certificates.
  • PKCS#12 - PKCS#12 structure containing the certificate and the corresponding private key
  • PKCS#12 - PKCS#12 structure containing the certificate, the corresponding private key and the chain of all issuers certificates.
  • PEM cert + key - concatenation of the private key and certificate in a format used by apache or the X509 patch for OpenSSH.
  • PEM cert + PKCS8 key - concatenation of the private key in PKCS#8 format and certificate.
• Token Store certificate on the Security token containing the private key
• Other token Store certificate on any Security token
• OpenSSL config Create an OpenSSL config file from the content of this certificate, which can be used to generate a similar certificate with openssl (openssl req -new -x509 -config <file>)

When exporting PKCS#12 structures you are asked later for an encryption password.

9.5 Certificate Transformation

A certificate transformation creates a new database entry based on the selected certificate.

• Public Key Extract the public key from the certificate and store it in the Private Keys Tab.
• Request Create a PKCS#10 request by using the data from the certificate. The private key of the certificate must be available for this option.
• Similar Certificate Starts the Certificate input dialog preset with all values from the current certificate to create a new certificate.
• Template Create a XCA template with the values of the request.

9.6 Certificate revocation

Certificates can only be revoked, if the private key of the issuer's certificate is available. The certificate will be marked as revoked and the revocation date and reason will be stored with the CA certificate.

If more than one unrevoked certificate of the same issuer is selected, all of them will be revoked at once with the same revocation date and reason. The context menu shows this by adding the number of selected certificates in squared brackets.

To generate a CRL, revoke the appropriate certificates and select CA->Generate CRL in the context-menu of the signing certificate.

9.7 Certificate renewal

Certificates can only be renewed, if the private key of the issuer's certificate is available. Renewal is done by creating a new certificate as a copy of the original one with adjusted validity dates.

Use the Revoke old certificate check-box to automatically revoke the old certificate.

If more than one certificate of the same issuer is selected, all of them will be renewed at once with the same validity dates. The context menu shows this by adding the number of selected certificates in squared brackets.

9.8 CA special functions

The context menu of CA certificates contains the CA sub-menu, which makes the following functions available:

• Properties
• Generate CRL Generate the CRL by collecting all revoked certificates and their revocation date.
• Manage revocations Displays all revocations and allows to manipulate them.

CA Properties

• CRL days The days until the next CRL release.
• Signing Template The default template for issuing certificates.

Manage revocations

Non existing certificates may be revoked by adding the serial number of the certificate. Since version 1.3.0 it is not required anymore to keep revoked certificates in the database, because the revocation information is stored together with the CA certificate.