With the help of OpenSSL, you can generate a key pair and create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) file.

The command line tool OpenSSL should already be pre-installed and ready to use on all Unix and Linux-based operating systems.

This page explains how to install and configure OpenSSL on Windows to perform the necessary key operations.

• Install OpenSSL
• Set Environment Variables

Install OpenSSL

OpenSSL is available for download at the following URLs:

• OpenSSL (sources and rpm)
• OpenSSL (binaries for Windows)

Please pay attention to the separate installation instructions on the OpenSSL page. In particular, it may be necessary to install a version of VC++ Redistributables that matches OpenSSL. This is explained on the OpenSSL (binaries for Windows) website.

Set Environment Variables

The following environment variables need to be set additionally:

HOME

cmd

set HOME=c:\openssl\bin

PowerShell

$env:Home="\bin\"

RANDFILE

cmd

set RANDFILE=%HOME%\.rnd

PowerShell

$env:RANDFILE="C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-Win64\bin\.rnd"

If you are using a customized version of openssl.cfg, you can set this via an environment variable:

cmd

set OPENSSL_CONF=%HOME%\openssl.cfg

PowerShell

$env:OPENSSL_CONF="\bin\openssl.cfg"

Please note that the command line interpreter used, e.g., Command Prompt or PowerShell, or the user must have appropriate access rights to the specified files in order to avoid access violations (e.g., private.pem: Permission denied) when running OpenSSL.

Next steps:

• Generating a Certificate Request (CSR)