OpenSSL and error in reading openssl.conf file

Question

I am running windows xp 32bit

I just downloaded Openssl from the following URL and installed it. http://www.slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html

and then i tried to create a self signed certificate by using the following command

openssl req -x509 -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout hostkey.pem -nodes -out hostcert.pem

then it started giving the following error

Unable to load config info from /usr/local/ssl/openssl.cnf

Then after googling sometime i changed the above command to

openssl req -config C:\OpenSSL\bin\openssl.conf -x509 -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout hostkey.pem -nodes -out hostcert.pem

But now i get the following error in the command prompt

error on line -1 of C:\OpenSSL\bin\openssl.conf
4220:error:02001002:system library:fopen:No such file or directory:.\crypto\bio\bss_file.c:126:fopen('C:\OpenSSL\bin\openssl.conf','rb') 4220:error:2006D080:BIO routines:BIO_new_file:no such file:.\crypto\bio\bss_file.c:129:
4220:error:0E078072:configuration file routines:DEF_LOAD:no such file:.\crypto\conf\conf_def.c:197:

Please help. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

On Windows you can also set the environment property OPENSSL_CONF. For example from the commandline you can type:

set OPENSSL_CONF=c:/libs/openssl-0.9.8k/openssl.cnf

to validate it you can type:

echo %OPENSSL_CONF%

You can also set it as part of the computer's environmental variables so all users and services have it available by default. See, for example, Environment variables in Windows NT and How To Manage Environment Variables in Windows XP.

Now you can run openssl commands without having to pass the config location parameter.