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Looking at the details of a certificate using the following:

openssl x509 -noout -text -purpose -in mycert.pem

I find a bunch of purpose flags (which I've discovered are set by the various extensions attached to a certificate).

One of these purpose flags is "Any Purpose". I can't seem to find ANY documentation on this flag and why or why not it is set.

Do any of you know where I can find more information on this purpose and what it means?

Thanks,

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From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_certificate

Key-Usage: Purpose of the public key (e.g. encipherment, signature, certificate signing...).

See the -purpose flag in the openssl docs: http://www.openssl.org/docs/apps/x509.html#CERTIFICATE_EXTENSIONS

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I was not asking what all of the other purpose bools represented, I was asking what the "Any Purpose" was and how it was set. This is not defined in either of the two links you sent me. – Nick Feb 10 '10 at 19:06
Your are right, that flag is not explicitly documented, I assumed that "Any Purpose" would mean any of the purposes listed. I looked at the code in openssl/crypto/x509v3/v3_purp.c and crypto/x509v3/x509v3.h. grep the source tree for: X509_PURPOSE_ANY I interpret it as being an extension of the certificate that means the cert is suitable for any purpose. i.e. that flag is just another x.509 certificate extension. – tajh Feb 10 '10 at 21:46
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