qcatool - Man Page

qcatool is a command line tool for performing various cryptographic operations with the Qt Cryptographic Architecture (QCA). qcatool can also be used for testing and debugging QCA.

qcatool has a range of options and commands. You only ever get to  use one command, but you may use several, one or no options.

As noted above, these are all optional, and may be combined.

--pass=PASSWORD

Specify the password to use. This is probably a bad idea except for  testing, because anyone can read the arguments to a command line application.

--newpass=PASSWORD

Specify the new password to use for password change  with the key changepass and keybundle changepass commands. This is probably a bad idea except for  testing, because anyone can read the arguments to a command line application.

--nonroots=CERTIFICATES

Specify additional certificates, not trusted, but which may be used in the trust path if appropriate trust can be established.

--roots=CERTIFICATES

Specify additional certificates which can be used as trusted (root) certificates.

--nosys

Disable use of the standard root certificates that are provided by the operating system.

--noprompt

Disable prompting for passwords/passphrases. If you do not provide the passphrase on the command line (with --pass or --newpass) this will cause qcatool to abort the command if a password/passphrase is required.

--ordered

If outputting certificate information fields (Distinguished Name and Subject Alternative Name), show them in same the order that they are present in the certificate rather than in a friendly sorted order.

--debug

Enable additional output to aid debugging.

--log-file=FILENAME

Log to the specified file.

--log-level=LEVEL

Log at the specified level. The log level can be between 0 (none) and 8 (most).

--nobundle

When S/MIME signing, do not bundle the signer's certificate chain inside the signature.  This results in a smaller signature output, but requires the recipient to have all of the necessary certificates in order to verify it.

help, --help, -h

Output usage (help) information.

version, --version, -v

Output version information.

plugins

List available plugins. Use the --debug option to get more information on plugins which are found and which ones actually loaded.

config save [provider]

Save provider configuration. Use this to have the provider's default configuration written to persistent storage, which you can then edit by hand.

config edit [provider]

Edit provider configuration. The changes are written to persistent storage.

key make rsa|dsa [bits]

Create a key pair

key changepass [K]

Add/change/remove passphrase of a key

cert makereq [K]

Create certificate request (CSR)

cert makeself [K]

Create self-signed certificate

cert makereqadv [K]

Advanced version of 'makereq'

cert makeselfadv [K]

Advanced version of 'makeself'

cert validate [C]

Validate certificate

keybundle make [K] [C]

Create a keybundle

keybundle extract [X]

Extract certificate(s) and key

keybundle changepass [X]

Change passphrase of a keybundle

keystore list-stores

List all available keystores

keystore list [storeName]

List content of a keystore

keystore monitor

Monitor for keystore availability

keystore export [E]

Export a keystore entry's content

keystore exportref [E]

Export a keystore entry reference

keystore addkb [storeName] [cert.p12]

Add a keybundle into a keystore

keystore addpgp [storeName] [key.asc]

Add a PGP key into a keystore

keystore remove [E]

Remove an object from a keystore

show cert [C]

Examine a certificate

show req [req.pem]

Examine a certificate request (CSR)

show crl [crl.pem]

Examine a certificate revocation list

show kb [X]

Examine a keybundle

show pgp [P|S]

Examine a PGP key

message sign pgp|pgpdetach|smime [X|S]

Sign a message

message encrypt pgp|smime [C|P]

Encrypt a message

message signencrypt [S] [P]

PGP sign & encrypt a message

message verify pgp|smime

Verify a message

message decrypt pgp|smime ((X) ...)

Decrypt a message (S/MIME needs X)

message exportcerts

Export certs from S/MIME message

The arguments to the commands are as follows.

K = private key.

C = certificate.

X = key bundle.

P = PGP public key.

S = PGP secret key.

E = generic entry.

These must be identified by either a filename or a keystore reference ("store:obj").

qcatool was written by Justin Karneges as part of QCA. This manual page was written by Brad Hards.

The man pages qcatool-qt5(1) and qcatool-qt6(1) are aliases of qcatool(1).