OPENSSL-FORMAT-OPTIONS(1SSL) OpenSSL OPENSSL-FORMAT-OPTIONS(1SSL)
NAME
openssl-format-options - OpenSSL command input and output format options
SYNOPSIS
openssl command [ options ... ] [ parameters ... ]
DESCRIPTION
Several OpenSSL commands can take input or generate output in a variety
of formats.
Since OpenSSL 3.0 keys, single certificates, and CRLs can be read from
files in any of the DER, PEM or P12 formats. Specifying their input
format is no more needed and the openssl commands will automatically try
all the possible formats. However if the DER or PEM input format is
specified it will be enforced.
In order to access a key via an engine the input format ENGINE may be
used; alternatively the key identifier in the <uri> argument of the
respective key option may be preceded by "org.openssl.engine:". See
"Engine Options" in openssl(1) for an example usage of the latter.
OPTIONS
Format Options
The options to specify the format are as follows. Refer to the
individual man page to see which options are accepted.
-inform format, -outform format
The format of the input or output streams.
-keyform format
Format of a private key input source.
-CRLform format
Format of a CRL input source.
Format Option Arguments
The possible format arguments are described below. Both uppercase and
lowercase are accepted.
The list of acceptable format arguments, and the default, is described
in each command documentation.
DER A binary format, encoded or parsed according to Distinguished
Encoding Rules (DER) of the ASN.1 data language.
ENGINE
Used to specify that the cryptographic material is in an OpenSSL
engine. An engine must be configured or specified using the -engine
option. A password or PIN may be supplied to the engine using the
-passin option.
P12 A DER-encoded file containing a PKCS#12 object. It might be
necessary to provide a decryption password to retrieve the private
key.
PEM A text format defined in IETF RFC 1421 and IETF RFC 7468. Briefly,
this is a block of base-64 encoding (defined in IETF RFC 4648), with
specific lines used to mark the start and end:
Text before the BEGIN line is ignored.
----- BEGIN object-type -----
OT43gQKBgQC/2OHZoko6iRlNOAQ/tMVFNq7fL81GivoQ9F1U0Qr+DH3ZfaH8eIkX
xT0ToMPJUzWAn8pZv0snA0um6SIgvkCuxO84OkANCVbttzXImIsL7pFzfcwV/ERK
UM6j0ZuSMFOCr/lGPAoOQU0fskidGEHi1/kW+suSr28TqsyYZpwBDQ==
----- END object-type -----
Text after the END line is also ignored
The object-type must match the type of object that is expected. For
example a "BEGIN X509 CERTIFICATE" will not match if the command is
trying to read a private key. The types supported include:
ANY PRIVATE KEY
CERTIFICATE
CERTIFICATE REQUEST
CMS
DH PARAMETERS
DSA PARAMETERS
DSA PUBLIC KEY
EC PARAMETERS
EC PRIVATE KEY
ECDSA PUBLIC KEY
ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY
PARAMETERS
PKCS #7 SIGNED DATA
PKCS7
PRIVATE KEY
PUBLIC KEY
RSA PRIVATE KEY
SSL SESSION PARAMETERS
TRUSTED CERTIFICATE
X509 CRL
X9.42 DH PARAMETERS
The following legacy object-type's are also supported for
compatibility with earlier releases:
DSA PRIVATE KEY
NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST
RSA PUBLIC KEY
X509 CERTIFICATE
SMIME
An S/MIME object as described in IETF RFC 8551. Earlier versions
were known as CMS and are compatible. Note that the parsing is
simple and might fail to parse some legal data.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2000-2021 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>.
3.5.4 2025-09-30 OPENSSL-FORMAT-OPTIONS(1SSL)
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