CA / Certificate Import / Export

[bimmerdriver]

pfSense provides the .crt format for CA / certificate export. For import, the CA /certificate must be pasted in PEM format. Is there a reason why pfSense will not import CA / certificate in the .crt format or some other format such as .cer? Windows 10 will export in .cer or .p7b format. (See attachment.)

[jimp]

Because accepting them in PEM format requires no extra work. Everything takes that format or can be easily converted from that format.

To accept certificates in other formats means we'd need a bunch of extra code to detect the other formats and convert them to PEM when importing.

In that wizard, use the "Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)" format, which is already PEM. Don't trust the default file extensions given by Windows.

[bimmerdriver]

@jimp:

Because accepting them in PEM format requires no extra work. Everything takes that format or can be easily converted from that format.

To accept certificates in other formats means we'd need a bunch of extra code to detect the other formats and convert them to PEM when importing.

In that wizard, use the "Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)" format, which is already PEM. Don't trust the default file extensions given by Windows.

Okay, thanks for the clarification. I didn't realize you could open a base-64 .cer file with notepad and copy the text.

I still don't understand why pfsense can't import a ca or cert in .crt format, when that's the format it uses for exporting a ca or cert.

[johnpoz]

I think the .crt is just confusing you - you can open that .crt file in notepad its just the base 64 encoded file..

[bimmerdriver]

@johnpoz:

I think the .crt is just confusing you - you can open that .crt file in notepad its just the base 64 encoded file..

Thanks for the reply. Not sure how I missed that.