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Certificate Forge

Certificate Forge is an interactive, browser-based playground for learning how digital certificates are issued. It walks through the complete certificate request flow, from generating a key pair to approving or rejecting a request as a Certificate Authority (CA) officer.

The cryptographic artifacts are real: the application uses the Web Crypto API to generate RSA keys, sign a PKCS#10 Certificate Signing Request (CSR), and issue an X.509 certificate. Everything runs locally in the browser with no backend and no build step.

What You Can Explore

  1. Generate an RSA 2048-bit public/private key pair.
  2. Enter the certificate subject identity.
  3. Build and sign a PKCS#10 CSR.
  4. Simulate submitting the CSR to a CA.
  5. Approve or reject the request as a CA registration officer.
  6. Issue and download a signed X.509 certificate.

You can also download the generated CSR, certificate, and unencrypted PKCS#8 private key in PEM format.

Run Locally

Clone the repository and serve it with any static HTTP server:

git clone git@github.com:leksim/pki-playground.git
cd pki-playground
python3 -m http.server 8000

Then open http://localhost:8000.

There are no dependencies to install. Opening index.html directly may work, but using localhost is recommended because browser security policies can restrict Web Crypto and clipboard features for local files.

Deploy to GitHub Pages

This repository is ready to serve as a static GitHub Pages site:

  1. Open the repository's Settings.
  2. Select Pages.
  3. Under Build and deployment, choose Deploy from a branch.
  4. Select the main branch and / (root) folder, then save.

Verify Downloaded Artifacts

After completing the flow and downloading the files, inspect them with OpenSSL:

openssl req -in example.csr -text -noout -verify
openssl x509 -in example.crt -text -noout
openssl pkey -in example.key -text -noout

Replace the filenames with the Common Name used in the playground.

Implementation

Certificate Forge is implemented in a single index.html file using:

  • HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript
  • Web Crypto API for RSA key generation and signing
  • A small built-in DER/ASN.1 encoder for PKCS#10 and X.509 structures
  • No external JavaScript libraries or server-side components

The generated keys and CA key exist only in the current page's memory. Reloading or restarting the playground discards them.

Security and Scope

This project is for education and experimentation only. Do not use its output for production systems.

  • The CA and identity-verification process are simulated.
  • The generated root CA is ephemeral and is not exported as a trust anchor.
  • Private keys are exportable and downloaded without encryption.
  • Certificates contain a minimal X.509 structure and omit production extensions such as Subject Alternative Name, Key Usage, and Basic Constraints.
  • No certificate revocation, chain validation, secure key storage, or hardware key protection is implemented.

For production PKI, use established tooling and protect private keys with an appropriate secrets-management or hardware-security solution.