What is OpenSSL?

OpenSSL is a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured, and Open Source toolkit implementing the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols as well as a full-strength general purpose cryptography library.

OpenSSL is maintained by a worldwide community of volunteers that use the Internet to communicate, plan, and develop the OpenSSL toolkit and its related documentation.

The openssl program is a command line tool for using the various cryptography functions of OpenSSL's crypto library from the shell. It can be used for:

• Creation and management of private keys, public keys and parameters
• Public key cryptographic operations
• Creation of X.509 certificates, CSRs and CRLs
• Calculation of Message Digests
• Encryption and Decryption with Ciphers
• SSL/TLS Client and Server Tests
• Handling of S/MIME signed or encrypted mail
• Time Stamp requests, generation and verification

OpenSSL supports a number of different cryptographic algorithms:

• Ciphers - AES, Blowfish, Camellia, SEED, CAST-128, DES, IDEA, RC2, RC4, RC5, Triple DES, GOST 28147-89.
• Cryptographic hash functions - MD5, MD2, SHA-1, SHA-2, RIPEMD-160, MDC-2, GOST R 34.11-94.
• Public-key cryptography - RSA, DSA, Diffie?Hellman key exchange, Elliptic curve, GOST R 34.10-2001.

For more information, see OpenSSL Website.

⇒General Information about OpenSSL

⇒⇒OpenSSL Tutorials