NSS
External
Internal
Overview
Network Security Services (NSS) comprises a set of libraries designed to support cross-platform development of security-enabled client and server applications with optional support for hardware TLS/SSL acceleration on the server side and hardware smart cards on the client side. NSS provides a complete open-source implementation of cryptographic libraries supporting Transport Layer Security (TLS) / Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and S/MIME.
Certificates
Location on Linux: /etc/pki/nssdb
certutil
certutil -L -d /etc/pki/nssdb
More certutil usage examples: http://serverfault.com/questions/498588/smtp-gmail-com-from-bash-gives-error-in-certificate-peers-certificate-issuer
Create a New Certificate Database and Import Google's Certificate
1. Create a New Directory
Create the new directory that will become the home of the new certificate database:
cd ~/tmp mkdir certs
2. Initialize it as a Certificate Database
certutil -N -d ./certs
The command will inquire for a password to encrypt the keys. If this database is used for public keys only, you can use an empty password:
[root@oceanlab tmp]# certutil -N -d ./certs Enter a password which will be used to encrypt your keys. The password should be at least 8 characters long, and should contain at least one non-alphabetic character. Enter new password: Re-enter password:
A certificate database consists in the following files with the following permissions:
/root/tmp/certs -rw------- 1 root root 65536 Jan 31 16:43 cert8.db -rw------- 1 root root 16384 Jan 31 16:43 key3.db -rw------- 1 root root 16384 Jan 31 16:43 secmod.db
3. Get a Root Certificate
Get a root certificate and move it into certs directory:
wget https://www.geotrust.com/resources/root_certificates/certificates/GeoTrust_Global_CA.cer . mv ./GeoTrust_Global_CA.cer certs
4. Get Google's Certificate
Get Google's certificate using the root certificate just downloaded:
echo -n | openssl s_client -connect smtp.gmail.com:465 -CAfile ./certs/GeoTrust_Global_CA.cer | sed -ne '/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p' > GMAILCERT
The output of the command is similar to:
[root@oceanlab tmp]# echo -n | openssl s_client -connect smtp.gmail.com:465 -CAfile ./certs/GeoTrust_Global_CA.cer | sed -ne '/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p' > GMAILCERT depth=3 C = US, O = Equifax, OU = Equifax Secure Certificate Authority verify return:1 depth=2 C = US, O = GeoTrust Inc., CN = GeoTrust Global CA verify return:1 depth=1 C = US, O = Google Inc, CN = Google Internet Authority G2 verify return:1 depth=0 C = US, ST = California, L = Mountain View, O = Google Inc, CN = smtp.gmail.com verify return:1 DONE
5. Import Google Certificate into the Certificate Database
certutil -A -n "Google Internet Authority" -t "C,," -d ./certs -i ./GMAILCERT
6. Verify that the Certificate was Correctly Imported
certutil -L -d ./certs
Output:
Certificate Nickname Trust Attributes
SSL,S/MIME,JAR/XPI
Google Internet Authority C,,