Keytool Commands

keytool

keytool does not support management of private keys inside a keystore. You need to use another tool for that. If you are using the JKS format, that means you need another java-based tool. extkeytool from the Shibboleth distribution can do this.

Create an empty keystore

keytool -genkey -alias foo -keystore truststore.jks
keytool -delete -alias foo -keystore truststore.jks

Generate a private key and an initial certificate as a JKS keystore

keytool -genkey -keyalg RSA -alias "selfsigned" -keystore KEYSTORE.jks -storepass "secret" -validity 360

you can also pass the data for the DN of the certificate as command-line parameters: -dname "CN=${pki-cn}, OU=${pki-ou}, O=${pki-o}, L=${pki-l}, S=${pki-s}, C=${pki-c}"

Generate a secret key that can be used for symmetric encryption. For this to work, you need to make use of a JCEKS keystore.

keytool -genseckey -alias "secret_key" -keystore KEYSTORE.jks -storepass "secret" -storetype "JCEKS"

Generate a Certificate Signing Request for a key in a JKS keystore

keytool -certreq -v -alias "selfsigned" -keystore KEYSTORE.jks -storepass "secret" -file MYCSR.csr

Import a (signed) certificate into a JKS keystore

keytool -import -keystore KEYSTORE.jks -storepass "secret" -file MYCERT.crt

add a public certificate to a JKS keystore, eg the JVM truststore

keytool -import -trustcacerts -alias "sensible-name-for-ca" -file CAcert.crt -keystore MYSTORE.jks

If the JVM truststore contains your certificate or the certificate of the root CA that signed your certificate, then the JVM will trust and thus might accept your certificate. The default truststore already contains the root certificates of most commonly used sommercial CA's.Use this command to add another certificate for trust:

keytool -import -trustcacerts -alias "sensible-name-for-ca" -file CAcert.crt -keystore $JAVA_HOME/lib/security/cacerts

the default password of the Java truststore is "changeit".
if $JAVA_HOME is set to the root of the JDK, then the truststore is it $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/security/cacerts
keytool does NOT support adding trust certificates to a PKCS12 keystore (which is very unfortunate but probably a good move to promote JKS)

delete a public certificate from a JAVA keystore (JKS; eg JVM truststore)

keytool -delete -alias "sensible-name-for-ca" -keystore $JAVA_HOME/lib/security/cacerts

the default password of the Java truststore is "changeit".
if $JAVA_HOME is set to the root of the JDK, then the truststore is it $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/security/cacerts

List the certificates inside a keystore

keytool -list -v -keystore KEYSTORE.jks

-storetype pkcs12 can be used

Get information about a stand-alone certificate

keytool -printcert -v -file MYCERT.crt

Convert a JKS file to PKCS12 format (Java 1.6.x and above)

keytool -importkeystore -srckeystore KEYSTORE.jks -destkeystore KEYSTORE.p12 -srcstoretype JKS -deststoretype PKCS12 -srcstorepass mysecret -deststorepass mysecret -srcalias myalias -destalias myalias -srckeypass mykeypass -destkeypass mykeypass -noprompt