Crate certkit 

CertKit - A Pure Rust Certificate Management Library

CertKit is a comprehensive certificate management library built entirely with rustcrypto libraries, providing an alternative to rcgen without dependencies on ring or openssl (except for testing). It supports creating and managing X.509 certificate chains, including loading intermediate CAs and generating server and client certificates.

Supported Key Types

CertKit supports the following cryptographic key types:

• RSA: 2048, 3072, and 4096-bit keys
• ECDSA: P-256, P-384, and P-521 curves
• Ed25519: Edwards curve digital signature algorithm

Supported Certificate Formats

• DER: Distinguished Encoding Rules (binary format)
• PEM: Privacy-Enhanced Mail (base64-encoded text format)

Key Features

• Pure Rust: Built entirely with rustcrypto libraries
• Certificate Chain Management: Create and validate certificate hierarchies
• Self-Signed Certificates: Generate root CA certificates
• Intermediate CAs: Support for multi-level certificate authorities
• X.509 Extensions: Comprehensive support for standard extensions
• Format Flexibility: Import/export in both PEM and DER formats

Quick Start

Generating a Self-Signed Certificate

use certkit::{
    key::KeyPair,
    cert::{Certificate, params::{CertificationRequestInfo, DistinguishedName}},
};

// Generate an RSA key pair
let key_pair = KeyPair::generate_rsa(2048)?;

// Create certificate parameters
let subject = DistinguishedName::builder()
    .common_name("example.com".to_string())
    .organization("Example Corp".to_string())
    .country("US".to_string())
    .build();

let cert_info = CertificationRequestInfo::builder()
    .subject(subject)
    .subject_public_key(certkit::key::PublicKey::from_key_pair(&key_pair))
    .build();

// Generate the self-signed certificate
let certificate = Certificate::new_self_signed(&cert_info, &key_pair);

// Export to PEM format
let pem_cert = certificate.to_pem()?;
println!("Certificate:\n{}", pem_cert);

Creating a Certificate Chain

use certkit::{
    key::KeyPair,
    cert::{Certificate, CertificateWithPrivateKey, params::{CertificationRequestInfo, DistinguishedName, Validity}},
    issuer::Issuer,
};

// Generate keys for CA and end-entity
let ca_key = KeyPair::generate_ecdsa_p256();
let server_key = KeyPair::generate_ecdsa_p256();

// Create CA certificate
let ca_subject = DistinguishedName::builder()
    .common_name("Example CA".to_string())
    .organization("Example Corp".to_string())
    .build();

let ca_cert_info = CertificationRequestInfo::builder()
    .subject(ca_subject)
    .subject_public_key(certkit::key::PublicKey::from_key_pair(&ca_key))
    .is_ca(true)
    .build();

let ca_cert = Certificate::new_self_signed(&ca_cert_info, &ca_key);
let ca_with_key = CertificateWithPrivateKey {
    cert: ca_cert,
    key: ca_key,
};

// Create server certificate signed by CA
let server_subject = DistinguishedName::builder()
    .common_name("server.example.com".to_string())
    .build();

let server_cert_info = CertificationRequestInfo::builder()
    .subject(server_subject)
    .subject_public_key(certkit::key::PublicKey::from_key_pair(&server_key))
    .build();

let validity = Validity::for_days(365);
let server_cert = ca_with_key.issue(&server_cert_info, validity);

println!("Server certificate issued successfully!");

Working with Certificate Extensions

use certkit::{
    key::KeyPair,
    cert::{
        Certificate,
        params::{CertificationRequestInfo, DistinguishedName, ExtensionParam},
        extensions::{SubjectAltName, ExtendedKeyUsage, ExtendedKeyUsageOption, ToAndFromX509Extension},
    },
};

let key_pair = KeyPair::generate_ed25519();

// Create Subject Alternative Name extension
let san = SubjectAltName {
    names: vec!["example.com".to_string(), "www.example.com".to_string()],
};

// Create Extended Key Usage extension
let eku = ExtendedKeyUsage {
    usage: vec![ExtendedKeyUsageOption::ServerAuth, ExtendedKeyUsageOption::ClientAuth],
};

let subject = DistinguishedName::builder()
    .common_name("example.com".to_string())
    .build();

let cert_info = CertificationRequestInfo::builder()
    .subject(subject)
    .subject_public_key(certkit::key::PublicKey::from_key_pair(&key_pair))
    .extensions(vec![
        ExtensionParam::from_extension(san, false),
        ExtensionParam::from_extension(eku, true),
    ])
    .build();

let certificate = Certificate::new_self_signed(&cert_info, &key_pair);
println!("Certificate with extensions created successfully!");

Error Handling

CertKit uses a comprehensive error system that provides detailed information about failures:

use certkit::{key::KeyPair, error::CertKitError};

match KeyPair::import_from_pkcs8_pem("invalid pem data") {
    Ok(key_pair) => println!("Key imported successfully"),
    Err(CertKitError::DecodingError(msg)) => println!("Failed to decode key: {}", msg),
    Err(CertKitError::InvalidInput(msg)) => println!("Invalid input: {}", msg),
    Err(e) => println!("Other error: {}", e),
}

Module Organization

• key: Key generation, import/export, and cryptographic operations
• cert: Certificate creation, encoding/decoding, and management
• issuer: Certificate issuing functionality and CA operations
• error: Comprehensive error types and handling
• tbs_certificate: Low-level certificate structure manipulation

Modules

cert

error

Error types and handling for the CertKit library.

issuer

key

tbs_certificate