Server and Client Certificate Management

Server and Client Certificate Management

Version 2.10.0 introduces three flags:

• --server-certs
• --client-cert
• --client-key

When to use Certificate Management

When a server requires mutual transport layer security (mTLS) authentication, the client upon verification of the server certificate, is required to send its own certificate to the server. The server subsequently checks its list of trusted CAs and verifies the client’s certificate.

In such a situation, the --client-key flag needs to be supplied a .pem file which has the PKCS #8 PEM encoded private key and the --client-cert flag must be supplied a PEM encoded certificate for the client. Additional root CA certificates may need to be supplied through --server-certs as a .pem or .der file if the server uses a self-signed certificate.

For example, if the server uses a root certificate called ca-crt.pem and the client is issued a certificate client-crt.pemand a key file client-key.pem, we will run:

feroxbuster --url https://localhost \
    --client-key client-key.pem \
    --client-cert client-crt.pem \
    --server-certs ca-crt.pem