certfetch

A simple CLI program to fetch an entire certificate chain in PEM format.

About

I whipped this up because I could never remember all the OpenSSL CLI args to pull down a certificate.

echo | openssl s_client -verify 8 -showcerts -connect github.com:443

Even if you do remember all that, the version of openssl that ships with Mac OS X is so ancient that it would filp out on sites that only supported TLS 1.2.

The tool also prints out some common info about the certs to STDERR so that you don't have to run openssl x509 -text on every single certificate.

The last line of output indicates whether the chain passed verification. If there was a problem verifying the chain, it will have exit code 4.

Usage

Usually, all you need to do is this:

certfetch github.com

Additional options:

-domain STRING      specify different domain used during TLS handshake
-cafile STRING      path to a CA file (PEM) to use instead of the default system root certs
-exp DURATION       warn if certificate will expire in this period of time (default 720h0m0s)
-file STRING        read domain+addr pairs from this CSV file

The certificates are output to STDOUT. Info about the certs is output to STDERR.

Example

PEM with Metadata

Note: Metadata is much more colorful than shown here (except when output is redirected or piped).

[brandt@absinthe ~]$ certfetch github.com
## Certificate 0: github.com

Subject:
  Common Name:          github.com
  Organization:         GitHub, Inc.
  Street Address:       548 4th Street
  Locality:             San Francisco
  Province:             California
  PostalCode:           94107
  Country:              US
  Serial Number:        5157550

Issuer:
  Common Name:          DigiCert SHA2 Extended Validation Server CA
  Organization:         DigiCert Inc
  Organizational Unit:  www.digicert.com
  Country:              US

Validity Period
  Not Before:  2014-04-07 18:00:00 -0600 MDT
  Not After:   2016-04-12 06:00:00 -0600 MDT

Serial: 0C 00 93 10 D2 06 DB E3 37 55 35 80 11 8D DC 87
Version: 3
Signature:
  Algorithm: SHA-256 with RSA

Public Key:
  Algorithm: RSA
  Public Exponent: 65537
  Key Size: 2048
  Usage:
    - Digital Signature
    - Key Encipherment

Extension: Subject Alternative Name
  - DNS: github.com
  - DNS: www.github.com

Extension: Key Usage
  - SSL/TLS Web Server Authentication
  - SSL/TLS Web Client Authentication

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIF4DCCBMigAwIBAgIQDACTENIG2+M3VTWAEY3chzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADB1
... >8 snip
XX4C2NesiZcLYbc2n7B9O+63M2k=
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

## Certificate 1: DigiCert SHA2 Extended Validation Server CA

=== CERTIFICATE AUTHORITY ===

Subject:
  Common Name:          DigiCert SHA2 Extended Validation Server CA
  Organization:         DigiCert Inc
  Organizational Unit:  www.digicert.com
  Country:              US

Issuer:
  Common Name:          DigiCert High Assurance EV Root CA
  Organization:         DigiCert Inc
  Organizational Unit:  www.digicert.com
  Country:              US

Validity Period
  Not Before:  2013-10-22 06:00:00 -0600 MDT
  Not After:   2028-10-22 06:00:00 -0600 MDT

Serial: 0C 79 A9 44 B0 8C 11 95 20 92 61 5F E2 6B 1D 83
Version: 3
Signature:
  Algorithm: SHA-256 with RSA

Public Key:
  Algorithm: RSA
  Public Exponent: 65537
  Key Size: 2048
  Usage:
    - Digital Signature
    - Certificate Sign
    - CRL Sign

Extension: Key Usage
  - SSL/TLS Web Server Authentication
  - SSL/TLS Web Client Authentication

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIEtjCCA56gAwIBAgIQDHmpRLCMEZUgkmFf4msdgzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADBs
... >8 snip
8TUoE6smftX3eg==
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Found 1 path(s) to verification...
Path 0:
  0.  LEAF businessCategory=Private Organization, jurisdictionC=US,
           jurisdictionST=Delaware, serialNumber=5157550, street=548
           4th Street, postalCode=94107, C=US, ST=California, L=San
           Francisco, O=GitHub, Inc., CN=github.com
  1.  INTR C=US, O=DigiCert Inc, OU=www.digicert.com, CN=DigiCert
           SHA2 Extended Validation Server CA
  2.  ROOT C=US, O=DigiCert Inc, OU=www.digicert.com, CN=DigiCert
           High Assurance EV Root CA

Verify: PASS

PEM only

When you redirect the output to a file or pipe it to another program, only the PEM is sent.

That's because the metadata is printed to STDERR - only the certs are printed on STDOUT.

[brandt@absinthe ~]$ certfetch github.com > /tmp/github-chain.pem
## Certificate 0: github.com
... >8 snip (metadata printed to STDERR)
[brandt@absinthe ~]$ cat /tmp/github-chain.pem
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIF4DCCBMigAwIBAgIQDACTENIG2+M3VTWAEY3chzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADB1
... >8 snip
XX4C2NesiZcLYbc2n7B9O+63M2k=
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIEtjCCA56gAwIBAgIQDHmpRLCMEZUgkmFf4msdgzANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADBs
... >8 snip
8TUoE6smftX3eg==
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Known Issues

• Broken ciphers not supported because they're not supported by Go TLS lib.
• SSLv2 not supported because it's not supported by the Go TLS lib.
• This was my first stab at Go, so it's a little funky.

Todo

• It desperately needs a refactor and tests.

Authors

• J. Brandt Buckley
• Began as a fork of artyom/certcheck.