Provided by: pki-tools_10.6.0-1ubuntu2_amd64 
NAME
pki - Command-Line Interface for accessing Certificate System services.
SYNOPSIS
pki [CLI options] <command> [command arguments]
DESCRIPTION
The pki command provides a command-line interface allowing clients to access various services on the
Certificate System server. These services include certificates, groups, keys, security domains, and
users.
CLI OPTIONS
-c <NSS database password>
Specifies the NSS database password (mutually exclusive to the '-C' option).
-C <NSS database password file>
Specifies the file which contains the NSS database password (mutually exclusive to the '-c'
option).
-d <NSS database location>
Specifies the NSS database location (default: ~/.dogtag/nssdb).
-h <hostname>
Specifies the hostname (default: hostname of the local machine).
--help Prints additional help information.
--ignore-cert-status <list>
Comma-separated list of ignored certificate validity statuses.
--message-format <format>
Message format: xml (default), json.
-n <client certificate nickname>
Specifies the nickname for client certificate authentication (mutually exclusive to the '-u'
option). This authentication requires a security database password.
--output <folder>
Folder to store HTTP messages.
-P <protocol>
Specifies the protocol (default: http).
-p <port>
Specifies the port (default: 8080).
--reject-cert-status <list>
Comma-separated list of rejected certificate validity statuses. PKI subsystem type - [CA, KRA,
OCSP, TKS, or TPS] (non-case-sensitive).
-t <type>
Subsystem type.
--token
Security token name
-U <URL>
Specifies the server URL.
-u <username>
Specifies the username for basic authentication (mutually exclusive to the '-n' option). This
authentication requires a user password.
-v, --verbose
Displays verbose information.
--version
Displays CLI version information.
-w <password>
Specifies the user password (mutually exclusive to the '-W' option).
-W <client-side password file>
Specifies the file which contains the user password (mutually exclusive to the '-w' option).
OPERATIONS
To view available commands and options, simply type pki. Some commands have sub-commands. To view the
sub-commands, type pki <command>. To view each command's usage, type pki <command> --help.
An NSS database is needed to execute commands that require crypto operations such as establishing SSL
connection. See pki-client(1) for more information.
Connection
By default, the CLI connects to a server running on the local machine via the non-secure HTTP port 8080.
To specify a different server location, use the appropriate arguments to give a different host (-h), port
(-p), or connection protocol (-P).
pki -P <protocol> -h <hostname> -p <port> <command>
Alternatively, the connection parameters can be specified as a URI:
pki -U <URI> <command>
where the URI is of the format <protocol>://<hostname>:<port>.
Authentication
Some commands require authentication. These are commands that are restricted to particular sets of users
(such as agents or admins) or those operations involving certificate profiles that require
authentication.
To execute a command without authentication:
pki <command>
To execute a command using basic authentication (i. e. - username/password), see the Basic Authentication
section of this man page.
To execute a command using client authentication (i. e. - client certificate), see the Client
Authentication section of this man page.
Basic Authentication
To authenticate with a username and password:
pki -u <username> -w <password> <command>
Rather than being exposed in plaintext on the command-line, user passwords may be stored in a file
instead. See Client-side Password Files for detailed information.
To authenticate with a username by obtaining the user password from a client-side password file:
pki -u <username> -W <client-side password file> <command>
Finally, if a username has been specified on the command-line, and neither the '-W <client-side password
file>' nor the '-w <password>' options have been utilized, the password will be prompted for.
To authenticate with a username by interactively prompting for a password:
pki -u <username> <command>
Note: Prompting for a user password is not suitable for automated batch processing.
Client Authentication Setup
A client certificate associated with the desired PKI server must be used for client authentication. This
can be done by importing the client certificate into an NSS security database and passing the values to
the relevant options provided by the pki CLI framework.
To achieve this, execute the following commands to set up an NSS database for use by the pki client,
import the client certificate into the NSS database, and list information (including the nickname of the
client certificate) stored in the NSS database:
- certutil -N -d <CERT_DB_DIR_PATH>
- pk12util -i <Agent_Cert_P12_FILE_PATH> -d <CERT_DB_DIR_PATH>
- certutil -L -d <CERT_DB_DIR_PATH>
The first command creates an NSS database, and asks the client user to enter a password for this NSS
database.
The second command imports a client certificate stored in a PKCS12 format into this NSS database; it
prompts for the passwords of the PKCS12 file and the NSS database. The simplest example of such a client
certificate is to obtain the administrator certificate created during the configuration portion of the
basic PKI installation of the associated PKI server (e. g. - located at /root/.dogtag/pki-
tomcat/ca_admin_cert.p12 on the PKI server machine).
The third command shows the information about the imported client certificate (including its nickname).
Note: When issuing the first pki command using the authentication parameters (after completion of the
setup of the NSS database), a user may be greeted with a warning message which indicates that an
untrusted issuer was encountered. Simply reply 'Y' to import the CA certificate, and, presuming that the
displayed CA server URL is valid, press the carriage return.
Client Authentication
To authenticate with a client certificate:
pki -d <NSS database location> -c <NSS database password> -n <client certificate nickname> <command>
Alternatively, to prevent exposure via the command-line, an NSS database may store their password in a
file instead. See Client-side Password Files for detailed information.
To authenticate with a client certificate by using the NSS database password stored in a file:
pki -d <NSS database location> -C <NSS password file> -n <client certificate nickname> <command>
Finally, if a client certificate has been specified on the command-line, and neither the '-C <NSS
database password file>' nor the '-c <NSS database password>' options have been utilized, the NSS
database password will be prompted for.
To authenticate with a client certificate by interactively prompting for an NSS database password:
pki -d <NSS database location> -n <client certificate nickname> <command>
Note: Prompting for an NSS database password is not suitable for automated batch processing.
Client-side Password Files
Both the '-C' (client authentication) and the '-W' (basic authentication) options require the use of a
client-side password file.
For security purposes, client-side password files should be, at a minimum, operating system protected
non-world readable files.
Client-side password files generally store a password in an equals-sign-delimited plaintext format
'token=password' (e. g. - 'internal=foobar' where 'internal' is the token, '=' is the delimiter, and
'foobar' is the actual password). The token keyword 'internal' is the default specification for a token,
and refers to the "Internal Key Storage Token". If a client-side password file is being used for the
sole purposes of the pki command-line tool, a client-side password file also supports the format that
merely consists of the plaintext password on a single line (read the Caveats which follow).
Caveats:
• Since client-side password files are allowed to use the 'token=password' format, the first '='
character can only be used as a delimiter (i. e. - it cannot be used as a valid character within
the 'token' name) as escaping the '=' character within a token is not supported.
• When specifying a password which contains an '=' character, always specify an initial '=' prior
to specifying the actual password (mandatory when no token has been specified) as escaping the '='
character within a password is not supported.
• Tokens do not support leading or trailing whitespace since these characters are stripped prior
to their use; however, all whitespace inside tokens will be preserved.
• Passwords preserve all leading, trailing, and internal whitespace since passwords are not
trimmed prior to their use.
• TBD: Supply code to handle the case of a non-internal token (e. g. - 'hardware-nethsm' utilized
in the following examples) since the current code ignores the specified token (i. e. - it always
utilizes the default 'internal' token no matter what is currently specified).
• TBD: Allow numerous 'token=password' lines in a single client-side password file to support the
ability to authenticate against specified tokens as well as multiple tokens.
Valid examples include:
internal=foobar
where: token="internal", password="foobar"
hardware-nethsm=foobar
where: token="hardware-nethsm" (ignored - TBD), password="foobar"
internal=ack=bar
where: token="internal", password="ack=bar"
hardware-nethsm=ack=bar
where: token="hardware-nethsm" (ignored - TBD), password="ack=bar"
=foobar
where: token="internal" (default), password="foobar"
=foo=bar
where: token="internal" (default), password="foo=bar"
(Since the password contains an '=' character,
an initial '=' character must be specified!)
foobar
where: token="internal" (default), password="foobar"
Results Paging
Some commands (e.g. cert-find) may return multiple results. Since the number of results may be large, the
results are split into multiple pages. By default the command will return only the first page (e.g. the
first 20 results). To retrieve results from another page, additional paging parameters can be specified:
* start: index of the first result to return (default: 0)
* size: number of results to return (default: 20)
For example, to retrieve the first page (index #0-#19):
pki cert-find --start 0 --size 20
To retrieve the second page (index #20-#39):
pki cert-find --start 20 --size 20
To retrieve the third page (index #40-#59):
pki cert-find --start 40 --size 20
FILES
/usr/bin/pki
SEE ALSO
pki-cert(1) Certificate management commands pki-client(1) NSS database management commands pki-group(1) Group management commands pki-group-member(1) Group member management commands pki-key(1) Key management commands pki-securitydomain(1) Security domain management commands pki-user(1) User management commands pki-user-cert(1) User certificate management commands pki-user-membership(1) User membership management commands pki-ca-profile(1) Profile management commands
AUTHORS
Ade Lee <alee@redhat.com>, Endi Dewata <edewata@redhat.com>, and Matthew Harmsen <mharmsen@redhat.com>.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2012 Red Hat, Inc. This is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2
(GPLv2). A copy of this license is available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt.