TLS certificate lifespans are shrinking fast. The CA/Browser Forum passed Ballot SC-081v3 unanimously in April 2025, setting a phased reduction: 200 days by March 2026, 100 days by March 2027, and 47 days by March 2029. Organizations managing dozens or hundreds of certificates can no longer rely on spreadsheets, calendar reminders, or manual renewal workflows. The math doesn't work — at 47-day lifespans, a team managing 100 certificates is processing 7+ renewals per week, every week, forever.
certctl is a self-hosted platform that automates the entire certificate lifecycle — from issuance through renewal to deployment — with zero human intervention. It works with any certificate authority, deploys to any server, and keeps private keys on your infrastructure where they belong. It's free, self-hosted, and covers the same lifecycle that enterprise platforms charge $100K+/year for.
gantt
title TLS Certificate Maximum Lifespan — CA/Browser Forum Ballot SC-081v3
dateFormat YYYY-MM-DD
axisFormat
todayMarker off
section 2015
5 years (1825 days) :done, 2020-01-01, 1825d
section 2018
825 days :done, 2020-01-01, 825d
section 2020
398 days :active, 2020-01-01, 398d
section 2026
200 days :crit, 2020-01-01, 200d
section 2027
100 days :crit, 2020-01-01, 100d
section 2029
47 days :crit, 2020-01-01, 47d
Actively maintained — shipping weekly. Found something? Open a GitHub issue — issues get triaged same-day. CI runs the full test suite with race detection, static analysis, and vulnerability scanning on every commit.
Ready to try it? Jump to the Quick Start — you'll have a running dashboard in under 5 minutes.
| Guide | Description |
|---|---|
| Why certctl? | How certctl compares to ACME clients, agent-based SaaS, and enterprise platforms |
| Concepts | TLS certificates explained from scratch — for beginners who know nothing about certs |
| Quick Start | 5-minute setup — dashboard, API, CLI, discovery, stakeholder demo flow |
| Docker Compose Environments | Service-by-service walkthrough of all 4 compose files, env var reference |
| Deployment Examples | 5 turnkey scenarios (ACME+NGINX, wildcard DNS-01, private CA, step-ca, multi-issuer) with migration guides |
| Advanced Demo | Issue a certificate end-to-end with technical deep-dives |
| Architecture | System design, data flow diagrams, security model |
| Feature Inventory | Complete reference of all capabilities, API endpoints, and configuration |
| Connector Reference | Configuration for all issuer, target, and notifier connectors |
| ACME Server | Run certctl as a drop-in ACME server — cert-manager / Caddy / Traefik walkthroughs + threat model |
| Approval Workflow | Two-person-integrity gate for certificate issuance — RBAC, audit, bypass mode |
| CA Hierarchy | Multi-level intermediate CA management — FedRAMP boundary CA, financial-services policy CA, internal-PKI patterns |
| Cloud Target Runbook | AWS ACM + Azure Key Vault deploy connectors — config, debugging, atomic-rollback semantics |
| Expiry Alert Runbook | Per-policy multi-channel routing matrix — severity tiers, fault-isolating dispatch |
| MCP Server | AI integration via Model Context Protocol — setup, available tools, examples |
| OpenAPI 3.1 Spec | API reference guide with endpoint overview (raw spec) |
| Compliance Mapping | SOC 2 Type II, PCI-DSS 4.0, NIST SP 800-57 alignment guides |
| Migrate from certbot | Step-by-step migration from certbot cron jobs to certctl |
| Migrate from acme.sh | Migration guide for acme.sh users, DNS hook compatibility |
| certctl for cert-manager users | How certctl complements cert-manager for mixed infrastructure |
| Test Environment | Docker Compose test environment with real CA backends |
| Testing Guide | Comprehensive test procedures, smoke tests, and release sign-off checklist |
| Issuer | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Local CA (self-signed + sub-CA + tree mode) | GenericCA |
Sub-CA mode chains to enterprise root (ADCS, etc.). Tree mode (Rank 8) manages multi-level intermediate CAs (intermediate_cas table) with RFC 5280 §3.2 / §4.2.1.9 / §4.2.1.10 enforcement — FedRAMP boundary CAs, financial-services policy CAs, internal PKI. See docs/intermediate-ca-hierarchy.md. |
| ACME v2 (Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSL, etc.) | ACME |
HTTP-01, DNS-01, DNS-PERSIST-01 challenges. EAB auto-fetch from ZeroSSL. Profile selection (tlsserver, shortlived). |
| step-ca (Smallstep) | StepCA |
JWK provisioner auth, issuance + renewal + revocation |
| OpenSSL / Custom CA | OpenSSL |
Shell script adapter — any CA with a CLI |
| HashiCorp Vault PKI | VaultPKI |
Token auth with automatic renewal at TTL/2 + Prometheus metric, synchronous issuance, CRL/OCSP delegated to Vault, opaque *secret.Ref credential storage |
| DigiCert CertCentral | DigiCert |
Async order model, OV/EV support, PEM bundle parsing |
| Sectigo SCM | Sectigo |
3-header auth, DV/OV/EV, collect-not-ready graceful handling |
| Google Cloud CAS | GoogleCAS |
OAuth2 service account, synchronous issuance, CA pool selection |
| AWS ACM Private CA | AWSACMPCA |
Synchronous issuance, configurable signing algorithm/template ARN |
| Entrust Certificate Services | Entrust |
mTLS client certificate auth, synchronous/approval-pending issuance |
| GlobalSign Atlas HVCA | GlobalSign |
mTLS + API key/secret dual auth, serial-based tracking |
| EJBCA (Keyfactor) | EJBCA |
Dual auth (mTLS with auto-reload-on-mtime via mtlscache, or OAuth2), self-hosted open-source CA |
Note: ADCS integration is handled via the Local CA's sub-CA mode — certctl operates as a subordinate CA with its signing certificate issued by ADCS. Any CA with a shell-accessible signing interface can be integrated via the OpenSSL/Custom CA connector.
| Target | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| NGINX | NGINX |
Atomic write + nginx -t validate + nginx -s reload + post-deploy TLS verify + rollback (deploy-hardening I) |
| Apache httpd | Apache |
Atomic write + apachectl configtest + graceful reload + post-deploy TLS verify + rollback |
| HAProxy | HAProxy |
Combined PEM atomic write + haproxy -c -f validate + systemctl reload + post-deploy TLS verify + rollback |
| Traefik | Traefik |
Atomic write + post-deploy TLS verify + rollback (file watcher auto-reloads) |
| Caddy | Caddy |
Atomic write (file mode) or POST /load (api mode) + admin API ValidateOnly probe |
| Envoy | Envoy |
Atomic write + SDS file watcher auto-reload |
| Postfix | Postfix |
Atomic write + postfix check + postfix reload + post-deploy TLS verify + rollback |
| Dovecot | Dovecot |
Atomic write + doveconf -n + doveadm reload + post-deploy TLS verify + rollback |
| Microsoft IIS | IIS |
Local PowerShell or remote WinRM, PEM→PFX, SNI support, explicit pre-deploy backup + post-rollback re-import |
| F5 BIG-IP | F5 |
iControl REST via proxy agent, transaction-based atomic updates + post-deploy TLS verify on Virtual Server |
| SSH (Agentless) | SSH |
SFTP cert/key deployment + pre-deploy SCP backup + tls.Dial post-verify |
| Windows Certificate Store | WinCertStore |
PowerShell Import-PfxCertificate + Get-ChildItem snapshot for rollback |
| Java Keystore | JavaKeystore |
PEM→PKCS#12→keytool pipeline + keytool snapshot for rollback |
| Kubernetes Secrets | KubernetesSecrets |
kubernetes.io/tls Secrets, atomic API + SHA-256 verify + kubelet sync poll |
| AWS Certificate Manager | AWSACM |
SDK-driven ImportCertificate (fresh ARN or rotate-in-place) + DescribeCertificate snapshot for atomic rollback + tag re-application. See docs/runbook-cloud-targets.md. |
| Azure Key Vault | AzureKeyVault |
SDK-driven PEM→PKCS#12 import via ImportCertificate (always new version) + snapshot CER bytes for atomic rollback + tag carry-forward. |
Deploy-hardening I (post-2026-04-30 master bundle): every connector now goes through internal/deploy.Apply for atomic-write + ownership-preservation + SHA-256 idempotency + per-target-type Prometheus counters (certctl_deploy_*_total). See docs/deployment-atomicity.md for the operator guide.
| Protocol | Standard | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| EST (production-grade) | RFC 7030 + RFC 9266 channel binding | Native EST server hardened for enterprise WiFi/802.1X, IoT bootstrap, and corporate device enrollment (post-2026-04-29 hardening master bundle). All six RFC 7030 endpoints — cacerts / simpleenroll / simplereenroll / csrattrs (profile-driven) / serverkeygen (CMS EnvelopedData wire format). Multi-profile dispatch (/.well-known/est/<pathID>/). Per-profile auth modes: mTLS sibling route at /.well-known/est-mtls/<pathID>/, HTTP Basic enrollment-password (constant-time compare + per-source-IP failed-auth limiter), RFC 9266 tls-exporter channel binding (TLS 1.3, opt-in per profile). Per-(CN, sourceIP) sliding-window rate limit. EST-source-scoped bulk revoke (POST /api/v1/est/certificates/bulk-revoke, M-008 admin-gated). Tabbed admin GUI at /est (Profiles / Recent Activity / Trust Bundle). SIGHUP-equivalent trust-bundle reload. libest reference-client interop tested in CI (deploy/test/libest/Dockerfile + deploy/test/est_e2e_test.go). Typed audit-action codes per failure dimension (est_simple_enroll_success/_failed, est_auth_failed_basic/_mtls/_channel_binding, est_rate_limited, est_csr_policy_violation, est_bulk_revoke, est_trust_anchor_reloaded, etc. — full set in internal/service/est_audit_actions.go). CLI + matching MCP tool family (rebuild count via grep -cE '"est_' internal/mcp/tools_est.go). See docs/est.md for the operator guide — WiFi/802.1X + FreeRADIUS recipe, IoT bootstrap, troubleshooting matrix per audit-action code. |
| SCEP (Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol) | RFC 8894 | MDM platforms (Jamf, Intune), network devices, ChromeOS. Full RFC 8894 wire format: EnvelopedData decryption, signerInfo POPO verification, CertRep PKIMessage builder; PKCSReq + RenewalReq + GetCertInitial messageType dispatch; multi-profile dispatch (/scep/<pathID>); per-profile RA cert + key. Lightweight raw-CSR clients keep working via the legacy MVP fall-through path. |
| Microsoft Intune SCEP fleet (drop-in NDES replacement) | RFC 8894 + Intune Connector signed-challenge dispatcher | Per-profile Intune dispatcher validates the Connector's signed challenge against an operator-supplied trust anchor; binds device claim to CSR (set-equality on CN + SAN-DNS/RFC822/UPN); replay cache + per-device rate limit; SIGHUP-reloadable trust pool; admin GUI SCEP Administration page at /scep (Profiles tab with per-profile RA cert expiry + mTLS status, Intune Monitoring tab with per-status counters + reload, Recent Activity tab with full SCEP audit log filter). See docs/scep-intune.md for the migration playbook + Microsoft support statement. |
| ACME v2 client | RFC 8555 | Public CA automated issuance (Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSL) |
| ACME v2 server (drop-in for cert-manager / Caddy / Traefik) | RFC 8555 + RFC 9773 ARI | Run certctl as your internal ACME CA. Per-profile endpoints at /acme/profile/{id}/* (directory, new-nonce, new-account, new-order, finalize, account, order, authz, challenge, key-change, revoke-cert, renewal-info). Per-profile acme_auth_mode: trust_authenticated for internal PKI; challenge for HTTP-01 / DNS-01 / TLS-ALPN-01 validation. Doubly-signed key rollover (§7.3.5), revoke-cert (§7.6, both kid-path and jwk-path auth), per-account rate limiting (orders/hour, key-change/hour, challenge-respond/hour), scheduler-driven nonce/authz/order GC. Three client walkthroughs: cert-manager, Caddy, Traefik. Reference: docs/acme-server.md + threat model. |
| ACME ARI (Renewal Information) | RFC 9773 | CA-directed renewal timing — the CA tells you when to renew (client-side and server-side) |
| Capability | Standard | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| DER-encoded X.509 CRL | RFC 5280 + RFC 7232 caching | Per-issuer, signed by issuing CA, 24h validity. Pre-generated by the scheduler (CERTCTL_CRL_GENERATION_INTERVAL, default 1h) and cached in crl_cache so HTTP fetches do not rebuild per request. Production hardening II: weak-form ETag (W/"") + Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600, must-revalidate + If-None-Match HTTP 304 short-circuit on GET /.well-known/pki/crl/{issuer_id} — CDNs and reverse proxies serve repeated fetches from edge cache. |
| CRL DistributionPoints auto-injection | RFC 5280 §4.2.1.13 | Production hardening II. Local issuer config field CRLDistributionPointURLs []string — when set, every issued cert carries the id-ce-cRLDistributionPoints extension pointing at certctl's own CRL endpoint. Refusing to silently inject an empty CDP is deliberate (silent-empty fails relying-party validation worse than no CDP). |
| Embedded OCSP responder | RFC 6960 + §4.4.1 nonce echo | GET + POST forms (POST /.well-known/pki/ocsp/{issuer_id} per §A.1.1). Signed by a per-issuer dedicated OCSP responder cert (RFC 6960 §2.6) carrying id-pkix-ocsp-nocheck (§4.2.2.2.1) — the CA private key is never used directly for OCSP signing. Responder cert auto-rotates within 7d of expiry. Production hardening II: RFC 6960 §4.4.1 nonce extension echoed in the response (defends against replay attacks); empty/oversized (>32 bytes per CA/B Forum BR §4.10.2) nonces produce the canonical "unauthorized" status (status 6) — never echo malformed bytes. |
| OCSP pre-signed response cache | — | Production hardening II. Per-(issuer, serial) pre-signed responses in the new ocsp_response_cache table; read-through facade in CAOperationsSvc.GetOCSPResponseWithNonce consults the cache for nil-nonce requests. Load-bearing security wire: RevocationSvc.RevokeCertificateWithActor calls InvalidateOnRevoke after a successful revoke so the next OCSP fetch returns the revoked status — no stale-good window. |
| Per-endpoint rate limits | — | Production hardening II. OCSP per-source-IP cap at CERTCTL_OCSP_RATE_LIMIT_PER_IP_MIN (default 1000/min, zero disables); cert-export per-actor cap at CERTCTL_CERT_EXPORT_RATE_LIMIT_PER_ACTOR_HR (default 50/hr, zero disables). OCSP rate-limit trip returns the canonical "unauthorized" OCSP blob plus Retry-After: 60; cert-export trip returns HTTP 429. The OCSP limiter does NOT honor X-Forwarded-For (publicly reachable; spoofed headers would bypass the cap). |
| Cert-export typed audit | — | Production hardening II. Typed action constants (cert_export_pem / cert_export_pkcs12 / cert_export_pem_with_key reserved / cert_export_failed) emitted via split-emit alongside the legacy bare codes for back-compat. Detail map carries has_private_key (always false in V2) and cipher (AES-256-CBC-PBE2-SHA256 — pinned so a future dependency upgrade that changes the encoder default surfaces in audit drift review). |
| Prometheus per-area metrics | OpenMetrics | GET /api/v1/metrics/prometheus — production hardening II surfaces certctl_ocsp_counter_total{label="..."} per-event series (request_get/_post, request_success/_invalid, nonce_echoed/_malformed, rate_limited, signing_failed, etc.) wired from the shared counter table that ticks in the cache hot path. CRL / cert-export / EST / SCEP / Intune per-area counters plug in via the same SetXxxCounters setter pattern as follow-up commits. |
| Disaster-recovery runbook | — | Production hardening II. docs/disaster-recovery.md — 8-section operator-grade runbook: CRL cache recovery, OCSP responder cert recovery, OCSP response cache recovery, CA private-key rotation 9-step playbook, Postgres restore + operator-managed-artifacts list, trust-bundle reload semantics, printable DR checklist. The SOC 2 / PCI procurement-team deliverable. |
| S/MIME certificates | RFC 8551 | Email protection EKU, adaptive KeyUsage flags (DigitalSignature | ContentCommitment instead of the TLS default DigitalSignature | KeyEncipherment). |
| Certificate export | — | PEM (JSON/file) and PKCS#12 (cert-only trust-store mode via pkcs12.Modern — AES-256-CBC PBE2 with SHA-256 KDF). Key-bearing PKCS#12 export deferred — V2 export is cert-only by design (private keys live on agents, never touch the control plane). |
| ACME DNS-PERSIST-01 | IETF draft | Standing validation record, no per-renewal DNS updates |
| Notifier | Type |
|---|---|
| Email (SMTP) | Email |
| Webhooks | Webhook |
| Slack | Slack |
| Microsoft Teams | Teams |
| PagerDuty | PagerDuty |
| OpsGenie | OpsGenie |
All connectors are pluggable — build your own by implementing the connector interface.
 Dashboard Stats, expiration heatmap, renewal trends, issuance rate |
 Certificates Inventory with bulk ops, status filters, owner/team columns |
 Issuers Catalog with 10 CA types, GUI config, test connection |
 Jobs Issuance, renewal, deployment queue with approval workflow |
Certificate lifecycle tooling falls into two camps: enterprise platforms (Venafi, Keyfactor) that cost six figures and take months to deploy, or single-purpose tools (certbot, cert-manager) that handle one slice of the problem. certctl fills the gap — full lifecycle automation, self-hosted, free, CA-agnostic, and target-agnostic. If you're running certbot cron jobs, manually renewing certs, or stitching together scripts across mixed infrastructure, certctl replaces all of that.
Built for platform engineering and DevOps teams managing 10–500+ certificates, security and compliance teams who need audit trails and policy enforcement for SOC 2, PCI-DSS 4.0, or NIST SP 800-57 (compliance mapping included), and small teams without enterprise budgets who need Venafi-grade automation for a 50-server environment. For a detailed comparison, see Why certctl?
Architecture. Go 1.25 control plane with handler→service→repository layering, PostgreSQL 16 backend (35+ tables), and a pull-only deployment model — the server never initiates outbound connections. Agents poll for work. For network appliances and agentless servers, a proxy agent in the same network zone handles deployment via the target's API (WinRM, iControl REST, SSH/SFTP). Background scheduler runs 7 loops: renewal with ARI integration (1h), job processing (30s), agent health (2m), notifications (1m), short-lived cert expiry (30s), network scanning (6h), certificate digest (24h). See Architecture Guide for full system diagrams.
Security-first. Agents generate ECDSA P-256 keys locally — private keys never touch the control plane. API key auth enforced by default with SHA-256 hashing and constant-time comparison. CORS deny-by-default. Shell injection prevention on all connector scripts. SSRF protection (reserved IP filtering) on the network scanner. Atomic idempotency guards on scheduler loops. Issuer and target credentials encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. Every API call recorded to an immutable audit trail with actor attribution, body hash, and latency tracking. CI runs race detection, 11 linters, and vulnerability scanning on every commit.
Key design decisions. TEXT primary keys — human-readable prefixed IDs (mc-api-prod, t-platform, o-alice) so you can identify resources at a glance in logs and queries. Idempotent migrations (IF NOT EXISTS, ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING) safe for repeated execution. Dynamic configuration via GUI with AES-256-GCM encrypted credential storage and env var backward compatibility. Handlers define their own service interfaces for clean dependency inversion.
Automated lifecycle. Certificates renew and deploy themselves. The scheduler monitors expiration, issues through your CA, and deploys to targets — zero human intervention. ACME ARI (RFC 9773) lets the CA direct renewal timing. Ready for 47-day (SC-081v3) and 6-day (Let's Encrypt shortlived) certificate lifetimes.
Operational dashboard. 30+ page GUI covers the entire lifecycle: certificate inventory with bulk ops, deployment timeline with rollback, discovery triage, network scan management, agent fleet health, short-lived credential countdown, approval workflows, CA-hierarchy management, and observability metrics. Configure issuers and targets from the dashboard — no env var editing, no server restarts.
Private keys stay on your servers. Agents generate ECDSA P-256 keys locally, submit only the CSR. The control plane never touches private keys. After deployment, agents probe the live TLS endpoint and compare SHA-256 fingerprints to confirm the right certificate is actually being served.
Discovery. Agents scan filesystems for existing PEM/DER certificates. The network scanner probes TLS endpoints across CIDR ranges without agents. Cloud discovery finds certificates in AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, and GCP Secret Manager. Continuous TLS health monitoring tracks endpoint status (healthy/degraded/down/cert_mismatch) with configurable thresholds and historical probe data. All discovery modes feed into a unified triage workflow — claim, dismiss, or import what you find.
Policy engine. Certificate profiles constrain key types, max TTL, and EKUs — with crypto policy enforcement that validates every CSR against profile rules before it reaches the issuer. MaxTTL caps are enforced per issuer connector. Ownership tracking routes notifications to the right team. Agent groups match devices by OS, architecture, IP CIDR, and version.
Two-person integrity for issuance (compliance-grade). Set requires_approval=true on a CertificateProfile and every renewal-loop tick or manual POST /api/v1/certificates/{id}/renew blocks at JobStatusAwaitingApproval until a different actor approves via POST /api/v1/approvals/{id}/approve. Same-actor self-approval is rejected at the service layer with ErrApproveBySameActor → HTTP 403. Bypass mode (CERTCTL_APPROVAL_BYPASS=true) is auditable — every auto-approve records actor=system-bypass so audit-tier review surfaces it. Closes the procurement-checklist question for PCI-DSS Level 1, FedRAMP Moderate / High, SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA. See docs/approval-workflow.md.
Multi-level CA hierarchy management. Set Issuer.HierarchyMode = "tree" and certctl manages a real N-level CA tree backed by the intermediate_cas table — root → policy → issuing leaves. RFC 5280 §3.2 (self-signed root validation), §4.2.1.9 (path-length tightening), and §4.2.1.10 (NameConstraints subset semantics) are all enforced at the service layer fail-closed. Drain-first retirement (active → retiring → retired) refuses terminal transitions while active children remain. Patterns documented for FedRAMP boundary CAs (4-level), financial-services policy CAs (3-level with per-BU PermittedDNSDomains), and internal PKI (2-level). The pre-Rank-8 single-sub-CA flow stays byte-identical for unmigrated deployments — pinned by TestLocal_HierarchyMode_SingleVsTree_ByteIdentical. See docs/intermediate-ca-hierarchy.md.
Run certctl as your ACME server. Beyond consuming public ACME CAs (Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSL), certctl now serves RFC 8555 — point cert-manager, Caddy, or Traefik at certctl's per-profile ACME endpoints (/acme/profile/{id}/*) and you get internal-PKI cert issuance with the same wire protocol the public CAs use. Full surface: directory, new-nonce, new-account, new-order, finalize, key-change (§7.3.5), revoke-cert (§7.6), renewal-info (RFC 9773 ARI), HTTP-01 / DNS-01 / TLS-ALPN-01 validation, per-account rate limiting, scheduler-driven nonce / authz / order GC. Three client walkthroughs ship — cert-manager, Caddy, Traefik — plus the operator reference and threat model.
Enrollment protocols. EST server (RFC 7030) for device and WiFi enrollment. SCEP server (RFC 8894) for MDM platforms and network devices — full wire format (EnvelopedData decrypt + signerInfo POPO verify + CertRep PKIMessage builder), tested against ChromeOS-shape requests; multi-profile dispatch (/scep/<pathID>); RenewalReq + GetCertInitial messageType support; lightweight raw-CSR fallback for legacy clients. See docs/legacy-est-scep.md for the operator + device-integration guide. S/MIME issuance with email protection EKU.
Revocation. Single and bulk revocation (by profile, owner, agent, or issuer). RFC 5280 reason codes. Production-grade revocation status surface for relying parties: DER-encoded X.509 CRL per issuer, scheduler-pre-generated and cached so HTTP fetches do not rebuild per request; embedded OCSP responder serving both GET and POST forms (RFC 6960 §A.1.1) with responses signed by a per-issuer dedicated OCSP responder cert (RFC 6960 §2.6, id-pkix-ocsp-nocheck per §4.2.2.2.1) — the CA private key is never used directly for OCSP signing. Both endpoints live unauthenticated under /.well-known/pki/ per RFC 8615. Short-lived certs (TTL < 1 hour) are exempt — expiry is sufficient revocation. See docs/crl-ocsp.md for the relying-party integration guide.
Audit and observability. Immutable append-only audit trail records every lifecycle action, every API call, and every approval decision. Prometheus metrics endpoint. Scheduled certificate digest emails. Continuous endpoint health monitoring with state machine transitions and real-time alerts.
Notifications + per-policy multi-channel routing. Slack, Teams, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, SMTP, webhooks. Routed by certificate owner. Daily digest emails with stats and expiring certs. Each RenewalPolicy carries an AlertChannels matrix (per-severity-tier channel set) + AlertSeverityMap (per-threshold tier resolution) so production-tier 7-day alerts page PagerDuty and Slack while informational 30-day alerts go email-only. Per-channel dispatch is fault-isolating — a PagerDuty failure does NOT skip Slack/Email at the same threshold. Per-channel dedup row + audit row + Prometheus counter (certctl_expiry_alerts_total{channel,threshold,result}). See docs/runbook-expiry-alerts.md.
Cloud-managed targets. Beyond on-server deploys (NGINX, Apache, IIS, F5, ...), certctl pushes renewed certs directly into AWS Certificate Manager (ImportCertificate + DescribeCertificate snapshot for atomic rollback + tag re-application) and Azure Key Vault (PEM→PKCS#12 import + snapshot CER bytes for rollback + tag carry-forward). The control plane never touches the cloud credentials — agents own them. See docs/runbook-cloud-targets.md.
Multiple interfaces. REST API (180+ routes), CLI (certs / agents / jobs / import / est / status / version command groups), MCP server (85+ tools for Claude, Cursor, Windsurf), Helm chart, web dashboard. Certificate export in PEM and PKCS#12.
First-run onboarding. Wizard guides you through connecting a CA, deploying an agent, and issuing your first certificate. Or start with the pre-populated demo — 32 certificates, 10 issuers, 180 days of history.
For the complete capability breakdown, see the Feature Inventory.
git clone https://github.com/certctl-io/certctl.git
cd certctl
docker compose -f deploy/docker-compose.yml up -d --buildWait ~30 seconds, then open https://localhost:8443 in your browser. (The shipped docker-compose.yml self-signs a cert via the certctl-tls-init init container on first boot — accept the browser warning for the demo, or feed the generated ca.crt to your client.) The onboarding wizard walks you through connecting a CA, deploying an agent, and issuing your first certificate.
Want a pre-populated demo instead? Add the demo override to see 32 certificates across 10 issuers, 8 agents, and 180 days of realistic history:
docker compose -f deploy/docker-compose.yml -f deploy/docker-compose.demo.yml up -d --buildThe deploy/ directory has four compose files: docker-compose.yml (base platform), docker-compose.demo.yml (demo data overlay), docker-compose.dev.yml (PgAdmin + debug logging), and docker-compose.test.yml (standalone integration tests with real CA backends). See the Docker Compose Environments Guide for a service-by-service walkthrough, or the Quick Start for a summary.
curl --cacert $(docker compose -f deploy/docker-compose.yml exec -T certctl-server cat /etc/certctl/tls/ca.crt) https://localhost:8443/health
# {"status":"healthy"}The control plane is HTTPS-only (TLS 1.3, no plaintext listener). See docs/tls.md for cert provisioning patterns and docs/upgrade-to-tls.md if you're upgrading from a pre-v2.2 release.
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/certctl-io/certctl/master/install-agent.sh | bashDetects your OS and architecture, downloads the binary, configures systemd (Linux) or launchd (macOS), and starts the agent. See install-agent.sh for details.
helm install certctl deploy/helm/certctl/ \
--set server.apiKey=your-api-key \
--set postgres.password=your-db-passwordProduction-ready chart with Server Deployment, PostgreSQL StatefulSet, Agent DaemonSet, health probes, security contexts (non-root, read-only rootfs), and optional Ingress. See values.yaml for all configuration options.
docker pull shankar0123.docker.scarf.sh/certctl-server
docker pull shankar0123.docker.scarf.sh/certctl-agentEvery v* tag publishes signed, attested release artefacts. Binaries
(certctl-agent, certctl-server, certctl-cli, certctl-mcp-server for
linux|darwin × amd64|arm64) ship alongside a checksums.txt, per-binary
SPDX-JSON SBOMs, Cosign signatures, and SLSA Level 3 provenance. Container
images on ghcr.io/certctl-io/certctl-{server,agent} are built with
docker/build-push-action provenance: mode=max + sbom: true and are
additionally signed with Cosign at the image digest.
All signatures use Cosign keyless OIDC; the signing identity is the release workflow running on a signed tag.
1. Verify SHA-256 checksums:
sha256sum -c checksums.txt2. Verify the Cosign signature on checksums.txt:
cosign verify-blob \
--bundle checksums.txt.sigstore.json \
--certificate-identity-regexp '^https://github\.com/certctl-io/certctl/\.github/workflows/release\.yml@refs/tags/' \
--certificate-oidc-issuer 'https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com' \
checksums.txtEvery individual binary ships with its own .sigstore.json bundle
(unified Sigstore bundle containing signature, certificate chain, and
Rekor inclusion proof). Swap checksums.txt for any binary name and
point --bundle at the matching <binary>.sigstore.json to verify it
directly.
3. Verify SLSA Level 3 provenance on a binary:
slsa-verifier verify-artifact \
--provenance-path multiple.intoto.jsonl \
--source-uri github.com/certctl-io/certctl \
--source-tag v2.1.0 \
certctl-agent-linux-amd644. Verify a container image signature and its SBOM / provenance attestations:
IMAGE=ghcr.io/certctl-io/certctl-server:v2.1.0
cosign verify \
--certificate-identity-regexp '^https://github\.com/certctl-io/certctl/\.github/workflows/release\.yml@refs/tags/' \
--certificate-oidc-issuer 'https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com' \
"$IMAGE"
# SBOM attestation (SPDX-JSON, emitted by docker/build-push-action)
cosign verify-attestation --type spdxjson \
--certificate-identity-regexp '^https://github\.com/certctl-io/certctl/' \
--certificate-oidc-issuer 'https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com' \
"$IMAGE"
# SLSA provenance attestation (docker/build-push-action `provenance: mode=max`)
cosign verify-attestation --type slsaprovenance \
--certificate-identity-regexp '^https://github\.com/certctl-io/certctl/' \
--certificate-oidc-issuer 'https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com' \
"$IMAGE"Pick the scenario closest to your setup and have it running in 2 minutes.
| Example | Scenario |
|---|---|
examples/acme-nginx/ |
Let's Encrypt + NGINX, HTTP-01 challenges |
examples/acme-wildcard-dns01/ |
Wildcard certs via DNS-01 (Cloudflare hook included) |
examples/private-ca-traefik/ |
Local CA (self-signed or sub-CA) + Traefik file provider |
examples/step-ca-haproxy/ |
Smallstep step-ca + HAProxy combined PEM |
examples/multi-issuer/ |
ACME for public + Local CA for internal, one dashboard |
Each directory contains a docker-compose.yml and a README.md explaining the scenario, prerequisites, and customization.
# Install
go install github.com/certctl-io/certctl/cmd/cli@latest
# Configure
export CERTCTL_SERVER_URL=https://localhost:8443
export CERTCTL_API_KEY=your-api-key
export CERTCTL_SERVER_CA_BUNDLE_PATH=/path/to/ca.crt # or --ca-bundle on the CLI; --insecure for dev self-signed
# Usage
certctl-cli certs list # List all certificates
certctl-cli certs renew mc-api-prod # Trigger renewal
certctl-cli certs revoke mc-api-prod --reason keyCompromise
certctl-cli agents list # List registered agents
certctl-cli jobs list # List jobs
certctl-cli status # Server health + summary stats
certctl-cli import certs.pem # Bulk import from PEM file
certctl-cli certs list --format json # JSON output (default: table)certctl ships a standalone MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes all 80 API endpoints as tools for AI assistants — Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, OpenClaw, VS Code Copilot, and any MCP-compatible client.
# Install and run
go install github.com/certctl-io/certctl/cmd/mcp-server@latest
export CERTCTL_SERVER_URL=https://localhost:8443
export CERTCTL_API_KEY=your-api-key
export CERTCTL_SERVER_CA_BUNDLE_PATH=/path/to/ca.crt # required for self-signed bootstrap
mcp-serverThe MCP server is env-vars-only — there are no CLI flags for TLS. If you must bypass verification for local development against a self-signed cert, set CERTCTL_SERVER_TLS_INSECURE_SKIP_VERIFY=true. Never set that in production.
Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"certctl": {
"command": "mcp-server",
"env": {
"CERTCTL_SERVER_URL": "https://localhost:8443",
"CERTCTL_API_KEY": "your-api-key",
"CERTCTL_SERVER_CA_BUNDLE_PATH": "/path/to/ca.crt"
}
}
}
}make build # Build server + agent binaries
make test # Run tests
make lint # golangci-lint (11 linters)
govulncheck ./... # Vulnerability scan
make docker-up # Start Docker Compose stackCI runs on every push: go vet, go test -race, golangci-lint, govulncheck, and per-layer coverage thresholds (service 55%, handler 60%, domain 40%, middleware 30%). Frontend CI runs TypeScript type checking, Vitest tests, and Vite production build. 1,668 Go test functions with 625+ subtests, plus frontend test suite.
Core lifecycle management — Local CA + ACME v2 issuers, NGINX target connector, agent-side key generation, API auth + rate limiting, React dashboard, CI pipeline with coverage gates, Docker images on GHCR.
40+ milestones shipping enterprise-grade features for free. Highlights below; the Feature Inventory has the complete reference.
- Issuers (12). Local CA (self-signed + sub-CA + tree-mode N-level hierarchy), ACME (DNS-01 / DNS-PERSIST-01 / EAB / ARI / profile selection), step-ca, Vault PKI (with auto-token-renewal at TTL/2), DigiCert CertCentral, Sectigo SCM, Google CAS, AWS ACM PCA, Entrust (mTLS), GlobalSign Atlas HVCA, EJBCA (mTLS auto-reload via
mtlscache), OpenSSL/Custom CA shell adapter. - On-server deploy targets (14). NGINX, Apache, HAProxy, Traefik, Caddy, Envoy, Postfix, Dovecot, IIS (WinRM), F5 BIG-IP, SSH, Windows Certificate Store, Java Keystore, Kubernetes Secrets — every connector goes through
internal/deploy.Applyfor atomic-write + ownership preservation + SHA-256 idempotency + per-target Prometheus counters + pre-deploy snapshot + on-failure rollback. - Cloud-managed deploy targets (2). AWS Certificate Manager + Azure Key Vault — SDK-driven import with snapshot bytes for atomic rollback, tag carry-forward, no cloud creds touch the control plane. (runbook)
- certctl as an ACME server. Full RFC 8555 surface (per-profile endpoints, accounts, orders, finalize, key-change §7.3.5, revoke-cert §7.6) + RFC 9773 ARI + HTTP-01 / DNS-01 / TLS-ALPN-01 validation + per-account rate limiting + scheduler-driven nonce/authz/order GC. Drop in for cert-manager / Caddy / Traefik. (reference, threat model)
- Enrollment protocols. EST server (RFC 7030 + RFC 9266 channel binding, multi-profile dispatch, libest-tested CI). SCEP server (RFC 8894 full wire format, Microsoft Intune Connector signed-challenge dispatcher with replay cache + per-device rate limit, ChromeOS-shape interop).
- Two-person-integrity approval workflow. Per-profile
requires_approval=truegate,JobStatusAwaitingApprovalscheduler skip, same-actor RBAC reject, auditable bypass mode. Compliance-grade for PCI-DSS Level 1, FedRAMP Moderate / High, SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA. (playbook) - First-class CA hierarchy management.
intermediate_castable, RFC 5280 §3.2 / §4.2.1.9 / §4.2.1.10 service-layer enforcement, drain-first retire (active → retiring → retired), 4 admin-gated endpoints, GUI tree view. Patterns documented for FedRAMP / financial-services / internal PKI. (runbook) - Multi-channel expiry alerts. Per-policy
AlertChannelsmatrix +AlertSeverityMap, fault-isolating per-channel dispatch (PagerDuty failure does not skip Slack/Email at the same threshold), per-channel dedup + audit + Prometheus counter. (runbook) - Revocation infrastructure. RFC 5280 DER CRL per issuer (scheduler-pre-generated + ETag-cached) + embedded RFC 6960 OCSP responder (dedicated per-issuer responder cert per §2.6,
id-pkix-ocsp-nocheck, RFC §4.4.1 nonce echo, OCSP response cache with revoke-invalidate hot path). Single + bulk revocation. (guide) - Discovery & lifecycle. Filesystem, network-CIDR, and cloud secret manager (AWS SM / Azure KV / GCP SM) certificate discovery with triage GUI. Continuous endpoint health monitoring. ACME ARI client-driven renewal timing. Approval workflows. Ownership routing. Agent groups (OS / arch / IP CIDR / version match).
- Secrets at rest. Issuer + target config encrypted with AES-256-GCM (versioned blob format, PBKDF2-SHA256 100K rounds, fail-closed sentinel
ErrEncryptionKeyRequired). Vault token + DigiCert API key + EJBCA / GlobalSign / Sectigo credentials migrated to opaque*secret.Refreferences. - Operator interfaces. REST API (180+ routes), CLI (
certs/agents/jobs/import/est/status/versioncommand groups), MCP server (85+ tools for Claude / Cursor / Windsurf), Helm chart, 30+ page web dashboard with first-run onboarding wizard. - Compliance. SOC 2 Type II, PCI-DSS 4.0, NIST SP 800-57 mapping (compliance docs). Disaster-recovery runbook (8-section operator-grade procedure). Migration guides from certbot, acme.sh, and cert-manager.
Everything ships free under BSL 1.1. No paid tier, no V3 / V4 gating, no enterprise edition. Future revenue path is a managed-service hosting offering — operate certctl-server as a hosted service while customers self-install only the agent.
Certctl is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1. The source code is publicly available and free to use, modify, and self-host. The one restriction: you may not use certctl's certificate management functionality as part of a commercial offering to third parties, whether hosted, managed, embedded, bundled, or integrated.
For licensing inquiries: certctl@proton.me
Backend dependency footprint is auditable on demand:
go list -m all | wc -l # total module count (direct + transitive)
go mod why <path> # explain why a particular module is pulled in
govulncheck ./... # vulnerability scan (CI runs this on every commit)
The release-time SBOM is published as a syft-produced cyclonedx file alongside each release artifact in .github/workflows/release.yml.
If certctl solves a problem you have, star the repo to help others find it. Questions, bugs, or feature requests — open an issue.