OCSPd

This how-to aims to start Online Certificate Status Protocol responder as a daemon.

Prerequisite

Before making anything, you must follow this tutorial to create the following items:

• Root Certificate Authority
• Intermediate Certificate Authority
• OCSP private key without password Feedback
• OCSP certificate signin request
• OCSP certificate

The operating system is Ubuntu server 18.04.4 LTS

Installation

Download needed files

You need to download two files in your home directory:

cd ~
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mikael-andre/OCSPd/master/ocspd.service
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mikael-andre/OCSPd/master/ocspd

Copy files

Once downloaded, you have to copy init script in /etc/systemd/system and configuration file in /etc/default:

sudo cp -p ocspd.service /etc/systemd/system/ocspd.service
sudo cp -p ocspd /etc/default/ocspd

Give good rights

The init script needs excute rights:

chmod 664 /etc/systemd/system/ocspd.service 

Create log file

In order to log requests and responses, you have to create a new log file in /var/log folder by the following command:

touch /var/log/ocspd.log

Reload Systemd

After giving theses privileges, you have to reload systemd

systemctl daemon-reload

Automatic start

Finaly, if you want init script to start on boot, you have to type this command

systemctl enable ocspd

Verifications

By the same command, systemctl status ocspd, you can verify if OCSPd is started or stopped.

Started

root@lnx001:~# systemctl status ocspd
● ocspd.service - Online Certificate Status Protocol daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/ocspd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-04-17 14:34:11 UTC; 1s ago
 Main PID: 3169 (openssl)
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 2353)
   CGroup: /system.slice/ocspd.service
           └─3169 /usr/bin/openssl ocsp -port 2560 -text -index /root/ca/intermediate/index.txt -CA /root/ca/intermediate/certs/cachaincert.pem -rkey /root/ca/intermediate/private/n

Apr 17 14:34:11 lnx001.ibreizh.lan systemd[1]: Started Online Certificate Status Protocol daemon.
Apr 17 14:34:11 lnx001.ibreizh.lan openssl[3169]: ocsp: waiting for OCSP client connections...

Stopped

root@lnx001:~# systemctl status ocspd
● ocspd.service - Online Certificate Status Protocol daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/ocspd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)

Apr 17 14:29:28 lnx001.ibreizh.lan systemd[1]: Stopping Online Certificate Status Protocol daemon...
Apr 17 14:29:28 lnx001.ibreizh.lan systemd[1]: Stopped Online Certificate Status Protocol daemon.