In Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) systems, a Certificate Signing Request (also CSR or certification request) is a message sent from an applicant to a Certificate Authority in order to apply for a digital identity certificate. It usually contains the public key for which the certificate should be issued, identifying information (such as a domain name) and integrity protection (e.g., a digital signature). The most common format for CSRs is the PKCS #10 specification and another is the Signed Public Key and Challenge SPKAC format generated by some Web browsers.
Contents
Procedure
Before creating a CSR, the applicant first generates a key pair, keeping the private key secret. The CSR contains information identifying the applicant (such as a distinguished name in the case of an X.509 certificate) which must be signed using the applicant's private key. The CSR also contains the public key chosen by the applicant. The CSR may be accompanied by other credentials or proofs of identity required by the certificate authority, and the certificate authority may contact the applicant for further information.
Typical information required in a CSR:
If the request is successful, the certificate authority will send back an identity certificate that has been digitally signed using the private key of the certificate authority.
Structure
The three main parts that a certification request consists of are the certification request information, a signature algorithm identifier, and a digital signature on the certification request information. The first part contains the significant information, including the public key. The signature by the requester prevents an entity from requesting a bogus certificate of someone else's public key. Thus the private key is needed to produce, but it is not part of, the CSR.
The first part, ASN.1 type CertificationRequestInfo, consists of a version number (which is 0 for all known versions, 1.0, 1.5, and 1.7 of the specifications), the subject name, the public key (algorithm identifier + bit string), and a collection of attributes providing additional information about the subject of the certificate. The attributes can contain required certificate extensions, a challenge-password to restrict revocations, as well as any additional information about the subject of the certificate, possibly including local or future types.
Example
The PKCS#10 standard defines a binary format for encoding CSRs for use with X.509. It is expressed in ASN.1. Here is an example of how you can examine its ASN.1 structure using OpenSSL:
openssl asn1parse -i -in your_request
A CSR may be represented as a Base64 encoded PKCS#10; an example of which is given below:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- MIICzDCCAbQCAQAwgYYxCzAJBgNVBAYTAkVOMQ0wCwYDVQQIDARub25lMQ0wCwYD VQQHDARub25lMRIwEAYDVQQKDAlXaWtpcGVkaWExDTALBgNVBAsMBG5vbmUxGDAW BgNVBAMMDyoud2lraXBlZGlhLm9yZzEcMBoGCSqGSIb3DQEJARYNbm9uZUBub25l LmNvbTCCASIwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQADggEPADCCAQoCggEBAMP/U8RlcCD6E8AL PT8LLUR9ygyygPCaSmIEC8zXGJung3ykElXFRz/Jc/bu0hxCxi2YDz5IjxBBOpB/ kieG83HsSmZZtR+drZIQ6vOsr/ucvpnB9z4XzKuabNGZ5ZiTSQ9L7Mx8FzvUTq5y /ArIuM+FBeuno/IV8zvwAe/VRa8i0QjFXT9vBBp35aeatdnJ2ds50yKCsHHcjvtr 9/8zPVqqmhl2XFS3Qdqlsprzbgksom67OobJGjaV+fNHNQ0o/rzP//Pl3i7vvaEG 7Ff8tQhEwR9nJUR1T6Z7ln7S6cOr23YozgWVkEJ/dSr6LAopb+cZ88FzW5NszU6i 57HhA7ECAwEAAaAAMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBBAUAA4IBAQBn8OCVOIx+n0AS6WbEmYDR SspR9xOCoOwYfamB+2Bpmt82R01zJ/kaqzUtZUjaGvQvAaz5lUwoMdaO0X7I5Xfl sllMFDaYoGD4Rru4s8gz2qG/QHWA8uPXzJVAj6X0olbIdLTEqTKsnBj4Zr1AJCNy /YcG4ouLJr140o26MhwBpoCRpPjAgdYMH60BYfnc4/DILxMVqR9xqK1s98d6Ob/+ 3wHFK+S7BRWrJQXcM8veAexXuk9lHQ+FgGfD0eSYGz0kyP26Qa2pLTwumjt+nBPl rfJxaLHwTQ/1988G0H35ED0f9Md5fzoKi5evU1wG5WRxdEUPyt3QUXxdQ69i0C+7 -----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----The above certificate signing request's ASN.1 structure (as parsed by openssl) appears as the following, where the first number is the byte offset, d=depth, hl=header length of the current type, l=length of content:
0:d=0 hl=4 l= 716 cons: SEQUENCE 4:d=1 hl=4 l= 436 cons: SEQUENCE 8:d=2 hl=2 l= 1 prim: INTEGER :00 11:d=2 hl=3 l= 134 cons: SEQUENCE 14:d=3 hl=2 l= 11 cons: SET 16:d=4 hl=2 l= 9 cons: SEQUENCE 18:d=5 hl=2 l= 3 prim: OBJECT :countryName 23:d=5 hl=2 l= 2 prim: PRINTABLESTRING :EN 27:d=3 hl=2 l= 13 cons: SET 29:d=4 hl=2 l= 11 cons: SEQUENCE 31:d=5 hl=2 l= 3 prim: OBJECT :stateOrProvinceName 36:d=5 hl=2 l= 4 prim: UTF8STRING :none 42:d=3 hl=2 l= 13 cons: SET 44:d=4 hl=2 l= 11 cons: SEQUENCE 46:d=5 hl=2 l= 3 prim: OBJECT :localityName 51:d=5 hl=2 l= 4 prim: UTF8STRING :none 57:d=3 hl=2 l= 18 cons: SET 59:d=4 hl=2 l= 16 cons: SEQUENCE 61:d=5 hl=2 l= 3 prim: OBJECT :organizationName 66:d=5 hl=2 l= 9 prim: UTF8STRING :Wikipedia 77:d=3 hl=2 l= 13 cons: SET 79:d=4 hl=2 l= 11 cons: SEQUENCE 81:d=5 hl=2 l= 3 prim: OBJECT :organizationalUnitName 86:d=5 hl=2 l= 4 prim: UTF8STRING :none 92:d=3 hl=2 l= 24 cons: SET 94:d=4 hl=2 l= 22 cons: SEQUENCE 96:d=5 hl=2 l= 3 prim: OBJECT :commonName 101:d=5 hl=2 l= 15 prim: UTF8STRING :*.wikipedia.org 118:d=3 hl=2 l= 28 cons: SET 120:d=4 hl=2 l= 26 cons: SEQUENCE 122:d=5 hl=2 l= 9 prim: OBJECT :emailAddress 133:d=5 hl=2 l= 13 prim: IA5STRING :[email protected] 148:d=2 hl=4 l= 290 cons: SEQUENCE 152:d=3 hl=2 l= 13 cons: SEQUENCE 154:d=4 hl=2 l= 9 prim: OBJECT :rsaEncryption 165:d=4 hl=2 l= 0 prim: NULL 167:d=3 hl=4 l= 271 prim: BIT STRING 442:d=2 hl=2 l= 0 cons: cont [ 0 ] 444:d=1 hl=2 l= 13 cons: SEQUENCE 446:d=2 hl=2 l= 9 prim: OBJECT :md5WithRSAEncryption 457:d=2 hl=2 l= 0 prim: NULL 459:d=1 hl=4 l= 257 prim: BIT STRINGThis was generated by supplying the base64 encoding into the command openssl asn1parse -in your_request -inform PEM -i where PEM stands for Privacy-enhanced mail and describes the encoding of the ASN.1 Distinguished Encoding Rules in base64.
Tools
OpenSSL can decode a CSR locally, without transmitting sensitive information over unsecure networks.