Preparation of using OpenSSL

Env Setup

1. Create a working directory called c:\ssl
2. Create three sub folders named as keys, requests and certs under c:\ssl.
3. Drop the openssl.conf into the working folder, c:\ssl.
4. Create an empty database.txt in working directory.
5. Create the serial number file serial.txt in working directory. This is a plain ASCII file containing the string "01" on the first line, followed by a newline.

Setup a CA

1. Generate CA‘s private key (rsa, des, 1024b).

                    c:\ssl\openssl genrsa -des3 -out keys/ca.key 1024

                    Meanwhile you need to provide a pass phrase for this private key.

                    The generated key file is in PEM format ???

2. Create a CA certificate based on this private key in c:\ssl\certs folder.

                   C:\ssl>openssl req -config openssl.conf -new -x509 -days 1001 -key keys/ca.key -out certs/ca.cer

                   The ca.cer is also in PEM format.