certgen

An SSL certificate generator (and manager) for local development. This tool is able to generate a local CA certificate and from it, regular SSL certificates. It can also install the CA certificate to the operating system so that most browsers can recognize the certgen SSL certificates in your local development.

Installation

Requirements:

• Python 3.10 or newer

Using PIP

The example below shows the installation to the user-level. Feel free to install it in a virtual environment.

1. Install the certgen tool.

   pip install git+https://github.com/DenisMedeiros/certgen

Using the Source Code

1. Clone or download this git repository.

   # SSH
   git clone [email protected]:DenisMedeiros/certgen.git
   
   # HTTPS
   git clone https://github.com/DenisMedeiros/certgen.git

2. Create a virtual environment, activate it, and install all dependencies.

   # Create venv.
   python3 -m venv venv
   
   # Activate it
   source venv/bin/activate.
   
   # Install dependencies.
   pip3 install requirements.txt

Usage

See all options using the help menu:

# Top level menu.
python3 src/certgen/certgen.py -h/--help

# Certificate create menu.
python3 src/certgen/certgen.py create -h/--help

Example of the creation of a CA and SSL certificate.

python3 src/certgen/certgen.py create --subject-alt-names example.com 192.168.0.10 hostname \
    --output-dir /tmp/

Example of the creation of a CA and SSL certificate - this time, installing the CA file on the system.

python3 src/certgen/certgen.py create --install-ca --subject-alt-names example.com 192.168.0.10 hostname \
    --output-dir /tmp/

Example of creation of SSL certificates using existing CA cert and key files:

python3 src/certgen/certgen.py create --subject-alt-names example.com 192.168.0.10 hostname \
    --output-dir ./ --ca-cert-path /tmp/certgen-ca.crt --ca-key-path /tmp/certgen-ca.key

You can check of the certgen CA file is already installed on the system:

python3 src/certgen/certgen.py check

Finally, you can see the content of the generated files using the openssl CLI if you have it in your system:

# Inspect the CA file.
openssl x509 -inform pem -noout -text -in certgen.crt

# Inspect the certificate file.
openssl x509 -inform pem -noout -text -in certgen-ca.crt

Important note: every time a new CA file is (re)installed in the system, you may need to close and open your browser again so that it can load the system CA files.

Build

To build the Python (wheel) package, simply run:

python3 setup.py bdist_wheel --universal