ca(1ssl)

ca1ssl

Openssl application commands

Part of openssl-cmds(1ssl).

Usage

openssl {cmd -help | [{-option | -option arg}] ... [arg] ...}

Overview

Every cmd listed above is a (sub-)command of the openssl(1) application. It has its own detailed manual page at openssl-cmd(1). For example, to view the manual page for the openssl dgst command, type "man openssl-dgst".

Options

Among others, every subcommand has a help option.

-help

Print out a usage message for the subcommand.

Releases

13 releases since Debian 3.0 (Woody); the text changed 12 times.

  1. 3.0
  2. 3.1
  3. 4.0
  4. 5.0
  5. 6.0
  6. 7
  7. 8
  8. 9
  9. 10
  10. 11
  11. 12
  12. 13
  13. Arch

-help since Debian 9 (Stretch).

-batch until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -cert until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -config until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -create_serial until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -crl_CA_compromise until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -crl_compromise until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -crl_hold until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -crl_reason until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -crldays until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -crlexts until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -crlhours until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -days until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -enddate until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -engine until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -extensions until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -extfile until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -gencrl until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -in until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -infiles until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -key until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -keyfile until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -keyform until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -md until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -msie_hack until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -multivalue-rdn until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -name until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -noemailDN until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -notext until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -out until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -outdir until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -passin until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -policy until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -preserveDN until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -rand until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -rand_serial until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -revoke until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -selfsign until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -sigopt until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -spkac until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -ss_cert until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -startdate until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -status until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -subj until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -updatedb until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -utf8 until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -valid until Debian 11 (Bullseye); -verbose until Debian 11 (Bullseye).

History

Initially, the manual page entry for the "openssl cmd" command used to be available at cmd(1). Later, the alias openssl-cmd(1) was introduced, which made it easier to group the openssl commands using the apropos(1) command or the shell's tab completion.

In order to reduce cluttering of the global manual page namespace, the manual page entries without the 'openssl-' prefix have been deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0 and will be removed in OpenSSL 4.0.

From openssl 3.6.5-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.