NAME¶

step-ca - an online certificate authority for secure automated certificate management

USAGE¶

step-ca [--password-file=file] [--issuer-password-file=file] [--resolver=value] [--help] [--version]

DESCRIPTION¶

step-ca runs the Step Online Certificate Authority (Step CA) using the given configuration. See the README.md for more detailed configuration documentation.

POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS¶

config

File that configures the operation of the Step CA; this file is generated when you initialize the Step CA using 'step ca init'

OPTIONS¶

--password-file file

path to the file containing the password to decrypt the intermediate private key.

--issuer-password-file file

path to the file containing the password to decrypt the certificate issuer private key used in the RA mode.

--resolver value

address of a DNS resolver to be used instead of the default.

--help

show help

--version

print the version

EXIT CODES¶

This command will run indefinitely on success and return >0 if any error occurs.

EXAMPLES¶

These examples assume that you have already initialized your PKI by running 'step ca init'. If you have not completed this step please see the 'Getting Started' section of the README. Run the Step CA and prompt for password:

$ step-ca $STEPPATH/config/ca.json

Run the Step CA and read the password from a file - this is useful for automating deployment:

$ step-ca $STEPPATH/config/ca.json --password-file ./password.txt

COMMANDS¶

help, h

display help for the specified command or command group

onboard

configure and run step-ca from the onboarding guide

version

display the current version of the cli

ONLINE¶

This documentation is available online at https://smallstep.com/docs/certificates

VERSION¶

Smallstep CA/0.15.15-1

COPYRIGHT¶

(c) 2018-2020 Smallstep Labs, Inc.

FEEDBACK¶

step-ca utility is not instrumented for usage statistics. It does not phone home. But your feedback is extremely valuable. Any information you can provide regarding how you are using step-ca helps. Please send us a sentence or two, good or bad: feedback@smallstep.com or https://github.com/smallstep/certificates/discussions