Ubuntu openssl not asking for Common Name

May 10, 2022

I have Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS and OpenSSL 1.0.1 versions installed. I want to generate a CSR for SSL and when I run,

openssl genrsa -out domain.key 2048

I get following output,

Generating RSA private key, 2048 bit long modulus
..+++
.......................+++
e is 65537 (0x10001)

and it doesn’t ask for Common Name or anything and generates a key. What’s causing this problem? Thanks

>Solution :

The command you issued is doing exactly what you have asked, it is to say to generate a 2048 private key.

Now you need to generate a CSR (a request certificate) where you will have to provide the required information including of course the CN.

Try adding

openssl req -new -key <MyPrivate.key> -out <MyRequest.csr>

where you need to replace <MyPrivate.key> with the filename of your private key generated in the previous step and <MyRequest.csr> is the filename of the certificate request. This csr must be sent to the certificate authority for validation and signature.

I hope it helps

cheers