Using GNU TLS to sign certificates!

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Issue

• I need to sign a certificate request (self signed certificates are not ok), but don't want to use a Certificate Authority like Thawte or Varisign. How to I set up a CA for myself?
  • You will likely do this if you are testing or want to be a CA for your organizations resources (in which your CA will be signed by one of these providers).

Resolution

Signing Certificates with GNU TLS is simple and only requires you to run the following.

   certtool --generate-certificate --load-request request.pem --outfile cert.pem --load-ca-certificate ca.pem --load-ca-privkey ca-key.pem

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