Generate A SAML Key And Certificate Pair
The openssl utility can be used to generate a SAML (Security Assertion Markup
Language) key pair which consists of a public certificate and a private key.
openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -sha256 \
-out saml.crt \
-keyout saml.key
The req command primarily creates and processes certificate requests in PKCS#10 format. It can additionally create self-signed certificates, for use as root CAs, for example.
The flags to req are as follows:
- -new for a new certificate (cert) request
- -x509 to output a self-signed cert instead of a cert request
- -days 365 for a year-long cert
- -nodes to not encrypt the private key
- -sha256 is the digest algorithm for signing the cert
- -out saml.crt specifies the certificate output file
- -keyout saml.key specifies the private key output file
See man openssl and search for openssl req for more details.