OPENSSL-PKCS12(1ossl) OpenSSL OPENSSL-PKCS12(1ossl)
NAME
openssl-pkcs12 - PKCS#12 file command
SYNOPSIS
openssl pkcs12 [-help] [-passin arg] [-passout arg] [-password arg]
[-twopass] [-in filename|uri] [-out filename] [-nokeys] [-nocerts]
[-noout] [-legacy] [-engine id] [-provider name] [-provider-path path]
[-provparam [name:]key=value] [-propquery propq] [-rand files]
[-writerand file]
PKCS#12 input (parsing) options: [-info] [-nomacver] [-clcerts]
[-cacerts]
[-aes128] [-aes192] [-aes256] [-aria128] [-aria192] [-aria256]
[-camellia128] [-camellia192] [-camellia256] [-des] [-des3] [-idea]
[-noenc] [-nodes]
PKCS#12 output (export) options:
[-export] [-inkey filename|uri] [-certfile filename] [-passcerts arg]
[-chain] [-untrusted filename] [-CAfile file] [-no-CAfile] [-CApath dir]
[-no-CApath] [-CAstore uri] [-no-CAstore] [-name name] [-caname name]
[-CSP name] [-LMK] [-keyex] [-keysig] [-keypbe cipher] [-certpbe cipher]
[-descert] [-macalg digest] [-pbmac1_pbkdf2] [-pbmac1_pbkdf2_md digest]
[-iter count] [-noiter] [-nomaciter] [-maciter] [-macsaltlen] [-nomac]
[-jdktrust usage]
DESCRIPTION
This command allows PKCS#12 files (sometimes referred to as PFX files) to
be created and parsed. PKCS#12 files are used by several programs
including Netscape, MSIE and MS Outlook.
OPTIONS
There are a lot of options the meaning of some depends of whether a
PKCS#12 file is being created or parsed. By default a PKCS#12 file is
parsed. A PKCS#12 file can be created by using the -export option (see
below). The PKCS#12 export encryption and MAC options such as -certpbe
and -iter and many further options such as -chain are relevant only with
-export. Conversely, the options regarding encryption of private keys
when outputting PKCS#12 input are relevant only when the -export option
is not given.
The default encryption algorithm is AES-256-CBC with PBKDF2 for key
derivation.
When encountering problems loading legacy PKCS#12 files that involve, for
example, RC2-40-CBC, try using the -legacy option and, if needed, the
-provider-path option.
-help
Print out a usage message.
-passin arg
The password source for input files. With -export, it is used to
decrypt the input private key. Otherwise, it is the password for the
input PKCS#12 file. For more information about the format of arg see
openssl-passphrase-options(1).
-passout arg
The password source for output files. With -export, it is the
password for the output PKCS#12 file. Otherwise, it is used to
encrypt any private keys that are output. For more information about
the format of arg see openssl-passphrase-options(1).
-password arg
With -export, -password is equivalent to -passout, otherwise it is
equivalent to -passin.
-twopass
Prompt for separate integrity and encryption passwords: most software
always assumes these are the same so this option will render such
PKCS#12 files unreadable. Cannot be used in combination with the
options -password, -passin if importing from PKCS#12, or -passout if
exporting.
-nokeys
No private keys will be output.
-nocerts
No certificates will be output.
-noout
This option inhibits all credentials output, and so the input is just
verified.
-legacy
Use legacy mode of operation and automatically load the legacy
provider. If OpenSSL is not installed system-wide, it is necessary
to also use, for example, "-provider-path ./providers" or to set the
environment variable OPENSSL_MODULES to point to the directory where
the providers can be found.
In the legacy mode, the default algorithm for certificate encryption
is RC2_CBC or 3DES_CBC depending on whether the RC2 cipher is enabled
in the build. The default algorithm for private key encryption is
3DES_CBC. If the legacy option is not specified, then the legacy
provider is not loaded and the default encryption algorithm for both
certificates and private keys is AES_256_CBC with PBKDF2 for key
derivation.
-engine id
See "Engine Options" in openssl(1). This option is deprecated.
-provider name
-provider-path path
-provparam [name:]key=value
-propquery propq
See "Provider Options" in openssl(1), provider(7), and property(7).
-rand files, -writerand file
See "Random State Options" in openssl(1) for details.
PKCS#12 input (parsing) options
-in filename|uri
This specifies the input filename or URI. Standard input is used by
default. Without the -export option this must be PKCS#12 file to be
parsed. For use with the -export option see the "PKCS#12 output
(export) options" section.
-out filename
The filename to write certificates and private keys to, standard
output by default. They are all written in PEM format.
-info
Output additional information about the PKCS#12 file structure,
algorithms used and iteration counts.
-nomacver
Don't attempt to verify the integrity MAC.
-clcerts
Only output client certificates (not CA certificates).
-cacerts
Only output CA certificates (not client certificates).
-aes128, -aes192, -aes256
Use AES to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-aria128, -aria192, -aria256
Use ARIA to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-camellia128, -camellia192, -camellia256
Use Camellia to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-des
Use DES to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-des3
Use triple DES to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-idea
Use IDEA to encrypt private keys before outputting.
-noenc
Don't encrypt private keys at all.
-nodes
This option is deprecated since OpenSSL 3.0; use -noenc instead.
PKCS#12 output (export) options
-export
This option specifies that a PKCS#12 file will be created rather than
parsed.
-out filename
This specifies filename to write the PKCS#12 file to. Standard output
is used by default.
-in filename|uri
This specifies the input filename or URI. Standard input is used by
default. With the -export option this is a file with certificates
and a key, or a URI that refers to a key accessed via an engine. The
order of credentials in a file doesn't matter but one private key and
its corresponding certificate should be present. If additional
certificates are present they will also be included in the PKCS#12
output file.
-inkey filename|uri
The private key input for PKCS12 output. If this option is not
specified then the input file (-in argument) must contain a private
key. If no engine is used, the argument is taken as a file. If the
-engine option is used or the URI has prefix "org.openssl.engine:"
then the rest of the URI is taken as key identifier for the given
engine.
-certfile filename
An input file with extra certificates to be added to the PKCS#12
output if the -export option is given.
-passcerts arg
The password source for certificate input such as -certfile and
-untrusted. For more information about the format of arg see
openssl-passphrase-options(1).
-chain
If this option is present then the certificate chain of the end
entity certificate is built and included in the PKCS#12 output file.
The end entity certificate is the first one read from the -in file if
no key is given, else the first certificate matching the given key.
The standard CA trust store is used for chain building, as well as
any untrusted CA certificates given with the -untrusted option.
-untrusted filename
An input file of untrusted certificates that may be used for chain
building, which is relevant only when a PKCS#12 file is created with
the -export option and the -chain option is given as well. Any
certificates that are actually part of the chain are added to the
output.
-CAfile file, -no-CAfile, -CApath dir, -no-CApath, -CAstore uri,
-no-CAstore
See "Trusted Certificate Options" in openssl-verification-options(1)
for details.
-name friendlyname
This specifies the "friendly name" for the certificates and private
key. This name is typically displayed in list boxes by software
importing the file.
-caname friendlyname
This specifies the "friendly name" for other certificates. This
option may be used multiple times to specify names for all
certificates in the order they appear. Netscape ignores friendly
names on other certificates whereas MSIE displays them.
-CSP name
Write name as a Microsoft CSP name. The password source for the
input, and for encrypting any private keys that are output. For more
information about the format of arg see
openssl-passphrase-options(1).
-LMK
Add the "Local Key Set" identifier to the attributes.
-keyex|-keysig
Specifies that the private key is to be used for key exchange or just
signing. This option is only interpreted by MSIE and similar MS
software. Normally "export grade" software will only allow 512 bit
RSA keys to be used for encryption purposes but arbitrary length keys
for signing. The -keysig option marks the key for signing only.
Signing only keys can be used for S/MIME signing, authenticode
(ActiveX control signing) and SSL client authentication, however,
due to a bug only MSIE 5.0 and later support the use of signing only
keys for SSL client authentication.
-keypbe alg, -certpbe alg
These options allow the algorithm used to encrypt the private key and
certificates to be selected. Any PKCS#5 v1.5 or PKCS#12 PBE algorithm
name can be used (see "NOTES" section for more information). If a
cipher name (as output by "openssl list -cipher-algorithms") is
specified then it is used with PKCS#5 v2.0. For interoperability
reasons it is advisable to only use PKCS#12 algorithms.
Special value "NONE" disables encryption of the private key and
certificates.
-descert
Encrypt the certificates using triple DES. By default the private key
and the certificates are encrypted using AES-256-CBC unless the
'-legacy' option is used. If '-descert' is used with the '-legacy'
then both, the private key and the certificates are encrypted using
triple DES.
-macalg digest
Specify the MAC digest algorithm. If not included SHA256 will be
used.
-pbmac1_pbkdf2
Use PBMAC1 with PBKDF2 for MAC protection of the PKCS#12 file.
-pbmac1_pbkdf2_md digest
Specify the PBKDF2 KDF digest algorithm. If not specified, SHA256
will be used. Unless "-pbmac1_pbkdf2" is specified, this parameter
is ignored.
-iter count
This option specifies the iteration count for the encryption key and
MAC. The default value is 2048.
To discourage attacks by using large dictionaries of common passwords
the algorithm that derives keys from passwords can have an iteration
count applied to it: this causes a certain part of the algorithm to
be repeated and slows it down. The MAC is used to check the file
integrity but since it will normally have the same password as the
keys and certificates it could also be attacked.
-noiter, -nomaciter
By default both encryption and MAC iteration counts are set to 2048,
using these options the MAC and encryption iteration counts can be
set to 1, since this reduces the file security you should not use
these options unless you really have to. Most software supports both
MAC and encryption iteration counts. MSIE 4.0 doesn't support MAC
iteration counts so it needs the -nomaciter option.
-maciter
This option is included for compatibility with previous versions, it
used to be needed to use MAC iterations counts but they are now used
by default.
-macsaltlen
This option specifies the salt length in bytes for the MAC. The salt
length should be at least 16 bytes as per NIST SP 800-132, which is
the default value.
-nomac
Do not attempt to provide the MAC integrity. This can be useful with
the FIPS provider as the PKCS12 MAC requires PKCS12KDF which is not
an approved FIPS algorithm and cannot be supported by the FIPS
provider.
-jdktrust
Export pkcs12 file in a format compatible with Java keystore usage.
This option accepts a string parameter indicating the trust oid name
to be granted to the certificate it is associated with. Currently
only "anyExtendedKeyUsage" is defined. Note that, as Java keystores
do not accept PKCS12 files with both trusted certificates and
keypairs, use of this option implies the setting of the -nokeys
option
NOTES
Although there are a large number of options most of them are very rarely
used. For PKCS#12 file parsing only -in and -out need to be used for
PKCS#12 file creation -export and -name are also used.
If none of the -clcerts, -cacerts or -nocerts options are present then
all certificates will be output in the order they appear in the input
PKCS#12 files. There is no guarantee that the first certificate present
is the one corresponding to the private key. Certain software which
tries to get a private key and the corresponding certificate might assume
that the first certificate in the file is the one corresponding to the
private key, but that may not always be the case. Using the -clcerts
option will solve this problem by only outputting the certificate
corresponding to the private key. If the CA certificates are required
then they can be output to a separate file using the -nokeys -cacerts
options to just output CA certificates.
The -keypbe and -certpbe algorithms allow the precise encryption
algorithms for private keys and certificates to be specified. Normally
the defaults are fine but occasionally software can't handle triple DES
encrypted private keys, then the option -keypbe PBE-SHA1-RC2-40 can be
used to reduce the private key encryption to 40 bit RC2. A complete
description of all algorithms is contained in openssl-pkcs8(1).
Prior 1.1 release passwords containing non-ASCII characters were encoded
in non-compliant manner, which limited interoperability, in first hand
with Windows. But switching to standard-compliant password encoding poses
problem accessing old data protected with broken encoding. For this
reason even legacy encodings is attempted when reading the data. If you
use PKCS#12 files in production application you are advised to convert
the data, because implemented heuristic approach is not MT-safe, its sole
goal is to facilitate the data upgrade with this command.
EXAMPLES
Parse a PKCS#12 file and output it to a PEM file:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -out file.pem
Output only client certificates to a file:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -clcerts -out file.pem
Don't encrypt the private key:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -out file.pem -noenc
Print some info about a PKCS#12 file:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -info -noout
Print some info about a PKCS#12 file in legacy mode:
openssl pkcs12 -in file.p12 -info -noout -legacy
Create a PKCS#12 file from a PEM file that may contain a key and
certificates:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in file.pem -out file.p12 -name "My PSE"
Include some extra certificates:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in file.pem -out file.p12 -name "My PSE" \
-certfile othercerts.pem
Export a PKCS#12 file with data from a certificate PEM file and from a
further PEM file containing a key, with default algorithms as in the
legacy provider:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in cert.pem -inkey key.pem -out file.p12 -legacy
SEE ALSO
openssl(1), openssl-pkcs8(1), ossl_store-file(7)
HISTORY
The -engine option was deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0. The -nodes option was
deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0, too; use -noenc instead. The -macsaltlen
option default changed from 8 to 16 bytes in OpenSSL 3.6.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2000-2026 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>.
3.6.5 2026-09-29 OPENSSL-PKCS12(1ossl)
openssl 3.6.5 - Generated Fri Oct 2 15:42:24 CDT 2026