NAME

       openssl-format-options - OpenSSL command input and output format options

SYNOPSIS

       openssl command [ options ... ] [ parameters ... ]

DESCRIPTION

       Several OpenSSL commands can take input or generate output in a variety of formats.

       Since OpenSSL 3.0 keys, single certificates, and CRLs can be read from files in any of the
       DER, PEM or P12 formats. Specifying their input format is no more needed and the openssl
       commands will automatically try all the possible formats. However if the DER or PEM input
       format is specified it will be enforced.

       In order to access a key via an engine the input format ENGINE may be used; alternatively
       the key identifier in the <uri> argument of the respective key option may be preceded by
       "org.openssl.engine:".  See "Engine Options" in openssl(1) for an example usage of the
       latter.

OPTIONS

   Format Options
       The options to specify the format are as follows.  Refer to the individual man page to see
       which options are accepted.

       -inform format, -outform format
           The format of the input or output streams.

       -keyform format
           Format of a private key input source.

       -CRLform format
           Format of a CRL input source.

   Format Option Arguments
       The possible format arguments are described below.  Both uppercase and lowercase are
       accepted.

       The list of acceptable format arguments, and the default, is described in each command
       documentation.

       DER A binary format, encoded or parsed according to Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER) of
           the ASN.1 data language.

       ENGINE
           Used to specify that the cryptographic material is in an OpenSSL engine.  An engine
           must be configured or specified using the -engine option.  A password or PIN may be
           supplied to the engine using the -passin option.

       P12 A DER-encoded file containing a PKCS#12 object.  It might be necessary to provide a
           decryption password to retrieve the private key.

       PEM A text format defined in IETF RFC 1421 and IETF RFC 7468. Briefly, this is a block of
           base-64 encoding (defined in IETF RFC 4648), with specific lines used to mark the
           start and end:

            Text before the BEGIN line is ignored.
            ----- BEGIN object-type -----
            OT43gQKBgQC/2OHZoko6iRlNOAQ/tMVFNq7fL81GivoQ9F1U0Qr+DH3ZfaH8eIkX
            xT0ToMPJUzWAn8pZv0snA0um6SIgvkCuxO84OkANCVbttzXImIsL7pFzfcwV/ERK
            UM6j0ZuSMFOCr/lGPAoOQU0fskidGEHi1/kW+suSr28TqsyYZpwBDQ==
            ----- END object-type -----
            Text after the END line is also ignored

           The object-type must match the type of object that is expected.  For example a "BEGIN
           X509 CERTIFICATE" will not match if the command is trying to read a private key. The
           types supported include:

            ANY PRIVATE KEY
            CERTIFICATE
            CERTIFICATE REQUEST
            CMS
            DH PARAMETERS
            DSA PARAMETERS
            DSA PUBLIC KEY
            EC PARAMETERS
            EC PRIVATE KEY
            ECDSA PUBLIC KEY
            ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY
            PARAMETERS
            PKCS #7 SIGNED DATA
            PKCS7
            PRIVATE KEY
            PUBLIC KEY
            RSA PRIVATE KEY
            SSL SESSION PARAMETERS
            TRUSTED CERTIFICATE
            X509 CRL
            X9.42 DH PARAMETERS

           The following legacy object-type's are also supported for compatibility with earlier
           releases:

            DSA PRIVATE KEY
            NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST
            RSA PUBLIC KEY
            X509 CERTIFICATE

       SMIME
           An S/MIME object as described in IETF RFC 8551.  Earlier versions were known as CMS
           and are compatible.  Note that the parsing is simple and might fail to parse some
           legal data.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright 2000-2021 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

       Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License").  You may not use this file except
       in compliance with the License.  You can obtain a copy in the file LICENSE in the source
       distribution or at <https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.