Provided by: pki-tools_10.8.3-1ubuntu1_amd64 
NAME
pki - Command-Line Interface for accessing PKI 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 PKI 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. Valid values are:
• BAD_CERT_DOMAIN
• BAD_KEY
• BAD_SIGNATURE
• CA_CERT_INVALID
• CERT_BAD_ACCESS_LOCATION
• CERT_NOT_IN_NAME_SPACE
• CERT_STATUS_SERVER_ERROR
• EXPIRED_CERTIFICATE
• EXPIRED_ISSUER_CERTIFICATE
• INADEQUATE_CERT_TYPE
• INADEQUATE_KEY_USAGE
• INVALID_TIME
• OCSP_BAD_HTTP_RESPONSE
• OCSP_FUTURE_RESPONSE
• OCSP_MALFORMED_REQUEST
• OCSP_MALFORMED_RESPONSE
• OCSP_NO_DEFAULT_RESPONDER
• OCSP_NOT_ENABLED
• OCSP_OLD_RESPONSE
• OCSP_REQUEST_NEEDS_SIG
• OCSP_SERVER_ERROR
• OCSP_TRY_SERVER_LATER
• OCSP_UNAUTHORIZED_REQUEST
• OCSP_UNKNOWN_CERT
• OCSP_UNKNOWN_RESPONSE_STATUS
• OCSP_UNKNOWN_RESPONSE_TYPE
• OCSP_UNAUTHORIZED_RESPONSE
• PATH_LEN_CONSTRAINT_INVALID
• REVOKED_CERTIFICATE
• SEC_ERROR_CRL_BAD_SIGNATURE
• SEC_ERROR_CRL_EXPIRED
• SEC_ERROR_CRL_INVALID
• UNKNOWN_ISSUER
• UNKNOWN_SIGNER
• UNTRUSTED_CERT
• UNTRUSTED_ISSUER
--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).
--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.
-t type
Subsystem type.
--token token
Security token name
-U URL
Specifies the server URL.
-u username
Specifies the username for basic authentication (mutually exclusive to the -n option).
-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 <NSS database location>
$ pk12util -i <client's PKCS #12 file> -d <NSS database location>
$ certutil -L -d <NSS database location>
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 PKCS #12 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" and password="foobar"
hardware-nethsm=foobar
where token="hardware-nethsm" (ignored - TBD) and password="foobar"
internal=ack=bar
where token="internal" and password="ack=bar"
hardware-nethsm=ack=bar
where and token="hardware-nethsm" (ignored - TBD) and password="ack=bar"
=foobar
where token="internal" (default) and password="foobar"
=foo=bar
where token="internal" (default) and password="foo=bar"
(Since the password contains an '=' character, an initial '=' character must be
specified!)
foobar
where token="internal" (default) and 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⟩.