Creating csr for SSL request on Ubuntu gives error

Question

I am trying to create SSL certification on my website. To, create csr , I used the command:

openssl req –new –newkey rsa:2048 –nodes –keyout mydomain.key –out mydomain.csr

But,I get the error saying:

req: Use -help for summary.

I checked if openssl is installed or not, and it gives the version. So, it is installed.

I don't know what to do. I am fairly new to this. This is my first try to get the SSL.

I am having hard time.

score 14 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 17 '20 at 15:57

I was seeing the exact same behaviour trying to generate a CSR in Ubuntu based on the instructions i found on the digicert website. After searching around online forever I finally noticed that two of the hyphens in my command looked slightly different.

It looks like the instructions I copied actually contained some en dashes instead of hyphens.

When I manually typed out the command instead of copying/pasting the openssl command worked as expected

Copy/pasted Digicert command:

openssl req –new –newkey rsa:2048 –nodes –keyout ./server.key –out ./server.csr

Screenshot of failed command

Manually typed Digicert command:

openssl req -new -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout ./server.key -out ./server.csr

Screenshot of successful command

Good catch ;) Indeed the Digicert page that comes first when googling the relevant keywords uses dashes instead of hyphens... — fevangelou, Nov 12 '21 at 16:08

Marat Gainutdinov · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-16T09:12:43.143

1

Generate and sign the private key for my.domain.com using openssl.

Create a new encrypted private key.

openssl genrsa -aes128 -out /etc/pki/tls/private/httpdkey.pem

Enter httpd at the passphrase prompt (or just press empty). Generate a self-signed certificate using the key.

openssl req -new -x509 -key /etc/pki/tls/private/httpdkey.pem -out /etc/pki/tls/certs/httpdcert.pem -days 365

OR

Generate a certificate signing request to be sent to a certificate authority:

openssl req -new -sha256 -key {{filename.key}} -out {{filename.csr}}

Generate a self-signed certificate from a certificate signing request valid for some number of days:

openssl x509 -req -days {{days}} -in {{filename.csr}} -signkey {{filename.key}} -out {{filename.crt}}

edited Jun 16 '20 at 09:12

answered Jun 16 '20 at 09:10

Marat Gainutdinov

160
7

Can you please explain a bit – Biplove Lamichhane Jun 16 '20 at 09:11
1

Yeah sure, what exactly you is not clear? :) – Marat Gainutdinov Jun 16 '20 at 09:13
Will it provide me csr file and key too? – Biplove Lamichhane Jun 16 '20 at 09:13
1

The first is Certificate Signing Request (CSR). This defines the information which will be contained within the certificate and includes things such as the organization name and domain name. The CSR is then sent to a CA or used to generate a self-signed certificate. We can easily generate the CSR and then the private key and public certificate with one command. For example, here's how to generate a CSR with a 2048 bit key and 600 day expiry: ```openssl req -x509 -new -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout private.key -out public.pem -days 600``` – Marat Gainutdinov Jun 16 '20 at 09:20
This example will ask a series of questions for the CSR and then automatically generate the private key (private.key) and the public certificate (public.pem) – Marat Gainutdinov Jun 16 '20 at 09:20
ok.. I ll check – Biplove Lamichhane Jun 16 '20 at 09:21
1

As far as I understood you needed to add cryptographic standard into your command. – Marat Gainutdinov Jun 16 '20 at 09:27
Yeah... It worked. Also, I followed the [link](https://www.liquidweb.com/kb/generating-certificate-signing-request-csr-ubuntu-16-04/) – Biplove Lamichhane Jun 16 '20 at 09:28

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 19 '22 at 13:20

I have spend few hours on this issue. In my case the problem was connected with dashes. I have copied and used this string from one site openssl req –new –newkey rsa:2048 –nodes –keyout dreamlist.key –out dreamlist.csr and it throwed req: Use -help for summary. issue. I have replaced all –s(from command) with -(write by keyboard) and now it works just fine.

The problem is that in some sites they use special characters in commands which looks really similar to dashes, but that characters doesn't work in terminal.

Creating csr for SSL request on Ubuntu gives error

3 Answers3