certctl — Self-Hosted Certificate Lifecycle Platform

timeline
    title TLS Certificate Maximum Lifespan (CA/Browser Forum Ballot SC-081v3)
    2015 : 5 years
    2018 : 825 days
    2020 : 398 days
    March 2026 : 200 days
    March 2027 : 100 days
    March 2029 : 47 days

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.

Documentation

Guide	Description
Concepts	TLS certificates explained from scratch — for beginners who know nothing about certs
Quick Start	Get running in 5 minutes — dashboard, API, CLI, discovery, stakeholder demo flow
Advanced Demo	Issue a certificate end-to-end with technical deep-dives
Architecture	System design, data flow diagrams, security model
Connectors	Build custom issuer, target, and notifier connectors
Compliance Mapping	SOC 2 Type II, PCI-DSS 4.0, NIST SP 800-57 alignment guides
Manual Testing Guide	Extensively tested — full V2 QA runbook with exact commands and pass/fail criteria

Contents

• Why certctl Exists
• What It Does
• Screenshots
• Quick Start
• Architecture
• Configuration
• MCP Server (AI Integration)
• CLI
• API Overview
• Supported Integrations
• Development
• Security
• Roadmap
• License

Why certctl Exists

Certificate lifecycle tooling today falls into two camps: expensive enterprise platforms (Venafi, Keyfactor, Sectigo) that cost six figures and take months to deploy, or single-purpose tools (cert-manager, certbot) that handle one slice of the problem. If you run a mixed infrastructure — some NGINX, some Apache, a few HAProxy nodes, maybe an F5 — and you need to manage certificates from multiple CAs, there's nothing self-hosted that covers the full lifecycle without vendor lock-in.

certctl fills that gap. It's CA-agnostic — the issuer connector interface means you can plug in any certificate authority: a self-signed local CA for dev, Let's Encrypt via ACME for public certs, Smallstep step-ca for your private PKI, your enterprise ADCS via sub-CA mode, or any custom CA through a shell script adapter. You're never locked to a single CA vendor, and you can run multiple issuers simultaneously for different certificate types.

It's also target-agnostic. Agents deploy certificates to NGINX, Apache, and HAProxy today, with Traefik and Caddy support coming next — all using the same pluggable connector model for any server that accepts cert files. The control plane never initiates outbound connections — agents poll for work, which means certctl works behind firewalls, across network zones, and in air-gapped environments.

What It Does

certctl gives you a single pane of glass for every TLS certificate in your organization. The web dashboard shows your full certificate inventory — what's healthy, what's expiring, what's already expired, and who owns each one. The REST API (95 endpoints under /api/v1/ + /.well-known/est/) lets you automate everything. Agents deployed on your infrastructure generate private keys locally, discover existing certificates on disk, and submit CSRs — private keys never leave your servers. The network scanner discovers certificates on TLS endpoints across your infrastructure without requiring agents. The EST server (RFC 7030) enables device and WiFi certificate enrollment via industry-standard Enrollment over Secure Transport. The background scheduler watches expiration dates and triggers renewals automatically — when certificate lifespans drop to 47 days, certctl handles the constant rotation without human involvement.

Core capabilities:

• Full lifecycle automation — issuance, renewal, deployment, and revocation with zero human intervention. Configurable renewal policies trigger jobs automatically based on expiration thresholds.
• CA-agnostic issuer connectors — Local CA (self-signed + sub-CA for enterprise root chains), ACME v2 with HTTP-01, DNS-01, and DNS-PERSIST-01 challenges (Let's Encrypt, Sectigo, any ACME-compatible CA), Smallstep step-ca (native /sign API), and OpenSSL/Custom CA (delegate to any shell script). Pluggable interface — add your own CA in one file.
• Agent-side key generation — agents generate ECDSA P-256 keys locally, store them with 0600 permissions, and submit only the CSR. Private keys never touch the control plane. This is the default mode, not an opt-in feature.
• Certificate discovery — agents scan filesystems for existing PEM/DER certificates and report findings for triage. The network scanner probes TLS endpoints across CIDR ranges to find certificates you didn't know existed.
• Revocation infrastructure — RFC 5280 revocation with all standard reason codes, DER-encoded X.509 CRL per issuer, embedded OCSP responder, and short-lived certificate exemption (certs under 1 hour skip CRL/OCSP).
• Policy engine — 5 rule types with violation tracking and severity levels. Certificate profiles enforce allowed key types, maximum TTL, and crypto constraints at enrollment time.
• Immutable audit trail — every action recorded to an append-only log. Every API call recorded with method, path, actor, SHA-256 body hash, response status, and latency. No update or delete on audit records.
• Operational dashboard — Full React GUI with certificate inventory, bulk operations (multi-select renew/revoke/reassign), deployment timeline visualization, inline policy editing, agent fleet overview, expiration heatmaps, and real-time short-lived credential tracking.
• Observability — JSON and Prometheus metrics endpoints, 5 stats API endpoints for dashboards, structured slog logging with request ID propagation. Compatible with Prometheus, Grafana Agent, Datadog Agent, and Victoria Metrics.
• Notifications — threshold-based alerting with deduplication. Routes to email, webhooks, Slack, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, and OpsGenie.
• EST enrollment (RFC 7030) — built-in Enrollment over Secure Transport server for device certificate enrollment. Supports WiFi/802.1X, MDM, and IoT use cases. PKCS#7 certs-only wire format, accepts PEM or base64-encoded DER CSRs, configurable issuer and profile binding.
• Multi-purpose certificates — certificate profiles support arbitrary EKU (Extended Key Usage) constraints. TLS (serverAuth/clientAuth) today, with S/MIME (emailProtection) and code signing support coming in v2.0.2.
• AI and CLI access — MCP server exposes all 78 API operations as tools for Claude, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible client. CLI tool with 12 subcommands for terminal workflows and scripting.

Screenshots

Dashboard Stats, expiration heatmap, renewal trends	Certificates Inventory with status, owner, team filters	Agents Fleet health, OS/arch, IP, version
Fleet Overview OS distribution, status breakdown	Jobs Issuance, renewal, deployment queue	Notifications Expiration warnings, renewal results
Policies Ownership, lifetime, renewal rules	Profiles Key types, max TTL, crypto constraints	Issuers Local CA, ACME, step-ca connectors
Targets NGINX, Apache, HAProxy deployment	Owners Cert ownership with team assignment	Teams Org grouping for notification routing
Agent Groups Dynamic grouping by OS, arch, CIDR	Audit Trail Immutable log, CSV/JSON export	Short-Lived Creds Ephemeral certs with live TTL countdown

Quick Start

Docker Pull

docker pull shankar0123.docker.scarf.sh/certctl-server
docker pull shankar0123.docker.scarf.sh/certctl-agent

Docker Compose (Recommended)

git clone https://github.com/shankar0123/certctl.git
cd certctl
docker compose -f deploy/docker-compose.yml up -d --build

Wait ~30 seconds, then open http://localhost:8443 in your browser.

The dashboard comes pre-loaded with 15 demo certificates, 5 agents, policy rules, audit events, and notifications — a realistic snapshot of a certificate inventory so you can explore immediately.

Verify the API:

curl http://localhost:8443/health
# {"status":"healthy"}

curl -s http://localhost:8443/api/v1/certificates | jq '.total'
# 15

Manual Build

# Prerequisites: Go 1.25+, PostgreSQL 16+
go mod download
make build

# Set up database
export CERTCTL_DATABASE_URL="postgres://certctl:certctl@localhost:5432/certctl?sslmode=disable"
export CERTCTL_AUTH_TYPE=none
make migrate-up

# Start server
./bin/server

# Start agent (separate terminal)
export CERTCTL_SERVER_URL=http://localhost:8443
export CERTCTL_API_KEY=change-me-in-production
export CERTCTL_AGENT_NAME=local-agent
export CERTCTL_AGENT_ID=agent-local-01
./bin/agent --agent-id=agent-local-01

Architecture

Control plane (Go 1.25 net/http) → PostgreSQL 16 (21 tables, TEXT primary keys) → Agents (key generation, CSR submission, cert deployment). Background scheduler runs 6 loops: renewal checks (1h), job processing (30s), agent health (2m), notifications (1m), short-lived cert expiry (30s), network scanning (6h). See Architecture Guide for full system diagrams and data flow.

Key Design Decisions

• Private keys isolated from the control plane. Agents generate ECDSA P-256 keys locally and submit CSRs (public key only). The server signs the CSR and returns the certificate — private keys never touch the control plane. Server-side keygen is available via CERTCTL_KEYGEN_MODE=server for demo/development only.
• TEXT primary keys, not UUIDs. IDs are human-readable prefixed strings (mc-api-prod, t-platform, o-alice) so you can identify resource types at a glance in logs and queries.
• Handler → Service → Repository layering. Handlers define their own service interfaces for clean dependency inversion. No global service singletons.
• Idempotent migrations. All schema uses IF NOT EXISTS and seed data uses ON CONFLICT (id) DO NOTHING, safe for repeated execution.

Database Schema

Table	Purpose
managed_certificates	Certificate records with metadata, status, expiry, tags
certificate_versions	Historical versions with PEM chains and CSRs
renewal_policies	Renewal window, auto-renew settings, retry config, alert thresholds
issuers	CA configurations (Local CA, ACME, etc.)
deployment_targets	Target systems (NGINX, F5, IIS) with agent assignments
agents	Registered agents with heartbeat tracking, OS/arch/IP metadata
jobs	Issuance, renewal, deployment, and validation jobs
teams	Organizational groups for certificate ownership
owners	Individual owners with email for notifications
policy_rules	Enforcement rules (allowed issuers, environments, metadata)
policy_violations	Flagged non-compliance with severity levels
audit_events	Immutable action log (append-only, no update/delete)
notification_events	Email and webhook notification records
certificate_target_mappings	Many-to-many cert ↔ target relationships
certificate_profiles	Named enrollment profiles with allowed key types, max TTL, crypto constraints
agent_groups	Dynamic device grouping by OS, architecture, IP CIDR, version
agent_group_members	Manual include/exclude membership for agent groups
certificate_revocations	Revocation records with RFC 5280 reason codes, serial numbers, issuer notification status
discovered_certificates	Filesystem and network-discovered certificates with fingerprint deduplication
discovery_scans	Discovery scan history with timestamps and agent attribution
network_scan_targets	Network scan target definitions with CIDRs, ports, schedule, and scan metrics

Configuration

All server environment variables use the CERTCTL_ prefix:

Variable	Default	Description
CERTCTL_SERVER_HOST	127.0.0.1	Server bind address
CERTCTL_SERVER_PORT	8080	Server listen port
CERTCTL_DATABASE_URL	postgres://localhost/certctl	PostgreSQL connection string
CERTCTL_DATABASE_MAX_CONNS	25	Connection pool size
CERTCTL_LOG_LEVEL	info	Log level: debug, info, warn, error
CERTCTL_LOG_FORMAT	json	Log format: json or text
CERTCTL_AUTH_TYPE	api-key	Auth mode: api-key, jwt, or none
CERTCTL_AUTH_SECRET	—	Required for api-key and jwt auth types
CERTCTL_KEYGEN_MODE	agent	Key generation mode: agent (production) or server (demo only)
CERTCTL_ACME_DIRECTORY_URL	—	ACME directory URL (e.g., Let's Encrypt staging)
CERTCTL_ACME_EMAIL	—	Contact email for ACME account registration
CERTCTL_ACME_CHALLENGE_TYPE	—	ACME challenge type: http-01 (default), dns-01, or dns-persist-01
CERTCTL_CA_CERT_PATH	—	Path to CA certificate for sub-CA mode
CERTCTL_CA_KEY_PATH	—	Path to CA private key for sub-CA mode
CERTCTL_CORS_ORIGINS	—	Comma-separated allowed CORS origins (empty = same-origin, * = all)
CERTCTL_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED	true	Enable/disable token bucket rate limiting
CERTCTL_RATE_LIMIT_RPS	50	Requests per second limit
CERTCTL_RATE_LIMIT_BURST	100	Maximum burst size for rate limiter
CERTCTL_DATABASE_MIGRATIONS_PATH	./migrations	Path to SQL migration files
CERTCTL_SCHEDULER_RENEWAL_CHECK_INTERVAL	1h	How often the scheduler checks for expiring certs
CERTCTL_SCHEDULER_JOB_PROCESSOR_INTERVAL	30s	How often the scheduler processes pending jobs
CERTCTL_SCHEDULER_AGENT_HEALTH_CHECK_INTERVAL	2m	How often the scheduler checks agent health
CERTCTL_SCHEDULER_NOTIFICATION_PROCESS_INTERVAL	1m	How often the scheduler processes pending notifications
CERTCTL_ACME_DNS_PRESENT_SCRIPT	—	Script to create DNS TXT record (_acme-challenge for dns-01, _validation-persist for dns-persist-01)
CERTCTL_ACME_DNS_CLEANUP_SCRIPT	—	Script to remove DNS-01 _acme-challenge TXT record (not used by dns-persist-01)
CERTCTL_ACME_DNS_PERSIST_ISSUER_DOMAIN	—	CA issuer domain for dns-persist-01 (e.g., letsencrypt.org)
CERTCTL_STEPCA_URL	—	step-ca server URL
CERTCTL_STEPCA_PROVISIONER	—	step-ca JWK provisioner name
CERTCTL_STEPCA_KEY_PATH	—	Path to step-ca provisioner private key (JWK JSON)
CERTCTL_STEPCA_PASSWORD	—	step-ca provisioner key password
CERTCTL_OPENSSL_SIGN_SCRIPT	—	Script for OpenSSL/Custom CA certificate signing
CERTCTL_OPENSSL_REVOKE_SCRIPT	—	Script for OpenSSL/Custom CA certificate revocation
CERTCTL_OPENSSL_CRL_SCRIPT	—	Script for OpenSSL/Custom CA CRL generation
CERTCTL_OPENSSL_TIMEOUT_SECONDS	30	Timeout for OpenSSL script execution
CERTCTL_NETWORK_SCAN_ENABLED	false	Enable server-side network certificate discovery (TLS scanning)
CERTCTL_NETWORK_SCAN_INTERVAL	6h	How often the scheduler runs network scans
CERTCTL_EST_ENABLED	false	Enable EST (RFC 7030) enrollment endpoints under /.well-known/est/
CERTCTL_EST_ISSUER_ID	iss-local	Issuer connector ID used for EST certificate enrollment
CERTCTL_EST_PROFILE_ID	—	Optional certificate profile ID to constrain EST enrollments
CERTCTL_SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL	—	Slack incoming webhook URL for notifications
CERTCTL_TEAMS_WEBHOOK_URL	—	Microsoft Teams incoming webhook URL
CERTCTL_PAGERDUTY_ROUTING_KEY	—	PagerDuty Events API v2 routing key
CERTCTL_OPSGENIE_API_KEY	—	OpsGenie Alert API key

Agent environment variables:

Variable	Default	Description
CERTCTL_SERVER_URL	http://localhost:8080	Control plane URL
CERTCTL_API_KEY	—	Agent API key
CERTCTL_AGENT_NAME	certctl-agent	Agent display name
CERTCTL_AGENT_ID	—	Registered agent ID (required)
CERTCTL_KEY_DIR	/var/lib/certctl/keys	Directory for storing private keys (agent keygen mode)
CERTCTL_DISCOVERY_DIRS	—	Comma-separated directories to scan for existing certificates (e.g., /etc/nginx/certs,/etc/ssl/certs)

Docker Compose overrides these for the demo stack (see deploy/docker-compose.yml): port 8443, auth type none, database pointing to the postgres container.

MCP Server (AI Integration)

certctl ships a standalone MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes all 78 API endpoints as tools for AI assistants — Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, OpenClaw, VS Code Copilot, and any MCP-compatible client.

# Install
go install github.com/shankar0123/certctl/cmd/mcp-server@latest

# Configure
export CERTCTL_SERVER_URL=http://localhost:8443   # certctl API endpoint
export CERTCTL_API_KEY=your-api-key               # optional if auth disabled

# Run (stdio transport — add to your AI client config)
mcp-server

Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "certctl": {
      "command": "mcp-server",
      "env": {
        "CERTCTL_SERVER_URL": "http://localhost:8443",
        "CERTCTL_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

78 tools organized by resource: certificates (9), CRL/OCSP (3), issuers (6), targets (5), agents (8), jobs (5), policies (6), profiles (5), teams (5), owners (5), agent groups (6), audit (2), notifications (3), stats (5), metrics (1), health (4).

CLI

certctl ships a command-line tool for terminal-based certificate management workflows.

# Install
go install github.com/shankar0123/certctl/cmd/cli@latest

# Configure
export CERTCTL_SERVER_URL=http://localhost:8443
export CERTCTL_API_KEY=your-api-key

# Certificate commands
certctl-cli certs list                    # List all certificates
certctl-cli certs get mc-api-prod         # Get certificate details
certctl-cli certs renew mc-api-prod       # Trigger renewal
certctl-cli certs revoke mc-api-prod --reason keyCompromise

# Agent and job commands
certctl-cli agents list                   # List registered agents
certctl-cli agents get ag-web-prod        # Get agent details
certctl-cli jobs list                     # List jobs
certctl-cli jobs get job-123              # Get job details
certctl-cli jobs cancel job-123           # Cancel a pending job

# Operations
certctl-cli status                        # Server health + summary stats
certctl-cli import certs.pem              # Bulk import from PEM file
certctl-cli version                       # Show CLI version

# Output formats
certctl-cli certs list --format json      # JSON output (default: table)

API Overview

All endpoints are under /api/v1/ and return JSON. List endpoints support pagination (?page=1&per_page=50). Full request/response schemas are available in the OpenAPI 3.1 spec.

Certificates

GET    /api/v1/certificates              List (filter, sort, cursor, sparse fields)
POST   /api/v1/certificates              Create
GET    /api/v1/certificates/{id}          Get
PUT    /api/v1/certificates/{id}          Update
DELETE /api/v1/certificates/{id}          Archive (soft delete)
GET    /api/v1/certificates/{id}/versions Version history
GET    /api/v1/certificates/{id}/deployments  List deployment targets
POST   /api/v1/certificates/{id}/renew    Trigger renewal → 202 Accepted
POST   /api/v1/certificates/{id}/deploy   Trigger deployment → 202 Accepted
POST   /api/v1/certificates/{id}/revoke   Revoke with RFC 5280 reason code
GET    /api/v1/crl                        Certificate Revocation List (JSON)
GET    /api/v1/crl/{issuer_id}            DER-encoded X.509 CRL
GET    /api/v1/ocsp/{issuer_id}/{serial}  OCSP responder (good/revoked/unknown)

Agents

GET    /api/v1/agents                     List
POST   /api/v1/agents                     Register
GET    /api/v1/agents/{id}                Get
POST   /api/v1/agents/{id}/heartbeat      Record heartbeat
POST   /api/v1/agents/{id}/csr            Submit CSR for issuance
GET    /api/v1/agents/{id}/certificates/{certId}  Retrieve signed certificate
GET    /api/v1/agents/{id}/work            Poll for pending deployment jobs
POST   /api/v1/agents/{id}/jobs/{jobId}/status  Report job completion/failure
POST   /api/v1/agents/{id}/discoveries    Submit certificate discovery scan results

Certificate Discovery

GET    /api/v1/discovered-certificates    List discovered certificates (?agent_id, ?status)
GET    /api/v1/discovered-certificates/{id}  Get discovery detail
POST   /api/v1/discovered-certificates/{id}/claim  Link discovered cert to managed cert
POST   /api/v1/discovered-certificates/{id}/dismiss  Dismiss discovery
GET    /api/v1/discovery-scans            List discovery scan history
GET    /api/v1/discovery-summary          Aggregated discovery status (new, claimed, dismissed counts)

Infrastructure

GET    /api/v1/issuers                    List issuers
POST   /api/v1/issuers                    Create
GET    /api/v1/issuers/{id}               Get
PUT    /api/v1/issuers/{id}               Update
DELETE /api/v1/issuers/{id}               Delete
POST   /api/v1/issuers/{id}/test          Test connectivity

GET    /api/v1/targets                    List deployment targets
POST   /api/v1/targets                    Create
GET    /api/v1/targets/{id}               Get
PUT    /api/v1/targets/{id}               Update
DELETE /api/v1/targets/{id}               Delete

Organization

GET    /api/v1/teams                      List teams
POST   /api/v1/teams                      Create
GET    /api/v1/teams/{id}                 Get
PUT    /api/v1/teams/{id}                 Update
DELETE /api/v1/teams/{id}                 Delete
GET    /api/v1/owners                     List owners
POST   /api/v1/owners                     Create
GET    /api/v1/owners/{id}                Get
PUT    /api/v1/owners/{id}                Update
DELETE /api/v1/owners/{id}                Delete

Operations

GET    /api/v1/jobs                       List (filter: status, type)
GET    /api/v1/jobs/{id}                  Get
POST   /api/v1/jobs/{id}/cancel           Cancel
POST   /api/v1/jobs/{id}/approve          Approve (interactive renewal)
POST   /api/v1/jobs/{id}/reject           Reject (interactive renewal)

GET    /api/v1/policies                   List policy rules
POST   /api/v1/policies                   Create
GET    /api/v1/policies/{id}              Get
PUT    /api/v1/policies/{id}              Update (enable/disable)
DELETE /api/v1/policies/{id}              Delete
GET    /api/v1/policies/{id}/violations   List violations for rule

GET    /api/v1/profiles                   List certificate profiles
POST   /api/v1/profiles                   Create
GET    /api/v1/profiles/{id}              Get
PUT    /api/v1/profiles/{id}              Update
DELETE /api/v1/profiles/{id}              Delete

GET    /api/v1/agent-groups               List agent groups
POST   /api/v1/agent-groups               Create
GET    /api/v1/agent-groups/{id}          Get
PUT    /api/v1/agent-groups/{id}          Update
DELETE /api/v1/agent-groups/{id}          Delete
GET    /api/v1/agent-groups/{id}/members  List members

GET    /api/v1/audit                      Query audit trail
GET    /api/v1/audit/{id}                 Get audit event
GET    /api/v1/notifications              List notifications
GET    /api/v1/notifications/{id}         Get notification
POST   /api/v1/notifications/{id}/read    Mark as read

Observability

GET    /api/v1/stats/summary              Dashboard summary (totals, expiring, agents, jobs)
GET    /api/v1/stats/certificates-by-status  Certificate counts grouped by status
GET    /api/v1/stats/expiration-timeline   Expiration buckets (?days=30)
GET    /api/v1/stats/job-trends            Job success/failure over time (?days=7)
GET    /api/v1/stats/issuance-rate         Certificate issuance rate (?days=7)
GET    /api/v1/metrics                     JSON metrics (gauges, counters, uptime)
GET    /api/v1/metrics/prometheus          Prometheus exposition format (text/plain)

Network Discovery

GET    /api/v1/network-scan-targets       List scan targets
POST   /api/v1/network-scan-targets       Create scan target (CIDRs, ports, schedule)
GET    /api/v1/network-scan-targets/{id}  Get scan target
PUT    /api/v1/network-scan-targets/{id}  Update scan target
DELETE /api/v1/network-scan-targets/{id}  Delete scan target
POST   /api/v1/network-scan-targets/{id}/scan  Trigger immediate scan

Auth

GET    /api/v1/auth/info                  Auth mode info (no auth required)
GET    /api/v1/auth/check                 Validate credentials

EST Enrollment (RFC 7030)

GET    /.well-known/est/cacerts           CA certificate chain (PKCS#7 certs-only)
POST   /.well-known/est/simpleenroll      Simple enrollment (PEM or base64-DER CSR)
POST   /.well-known/est/simplereenroll    Simple re-enrollment (certificate renewal)
GET    /.well-known/est/csrattrs          CSR attributes request

Health

GET    /health                            Server health check
GET    /ready                             Readiness check

Supported Integrations

Certificate Issuers

Issuer	Status	Type
Local CA (self-signed + sub-CA)	Implemented	GenericCA
ACME v2 (Let's Encrypt, Sectigo)	Implemented (HTTP-01 + DNS-01 + DNS-PERSIST-01)	ACME
step-ca	Implemented	StepCA
OpenSSL / Custom CA	Implemented	OpenSSL
Vault PKI	Future	—
DigiCert	Future	—

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 today via the OpenSSL/Custom CA connector.

Deployment Targets

Target	Status	Type
NGINX	Implemented	NGINX
Apache httpd	Implemented	Apache
HAProxy	Implemented	HAProxy
Traefik	Planned (v2.1.x)	Traefik
Caddy	Planned (v2.1.x)	Caddy
F5 BIG-IP	Interface only	F5
Microsoft IIS	Interface only	IIS

Notifiers

Notifier	Status	Type
Email (SMTP)	Implemented	Email
Webhooks	Implemented	Webhook
Slack	Implemented	Slack
Microsoft Teams	Implemented	Teams
PagerDuty	Implemented	PagerDuty
OpsGenie	Implemented	OpsGenie

Development

# Install dev tools (golangci-lint, migrate CLI, air)
make install-tools

# Run tests
make test

# Run with coverage
make test-coverage

# Lint
make lint

# Format
make fmt

Docker Compose

make docker-up          # Start stack (server + postgres + agent)
make docker-down        # Stop stack
make docker-logs-server # Server logs
make docker-logs-agent  # Agent logs
make docker-clean       # Stop + remove volumes

Security

Private Key Management

• Agent keygen mode (default): Agents generate ECDSA P-256 keys locally and store them with 0600 permissions in CERTCTL_KEY_DIR (default /var/lib/certctl/keys). Only the CSR (public key) is sent to the control plane. Private keys never leave agent infrastructure.
• Server keygen mode (demo only): Set CERTCTL_KEYGEN_MODE=server for development/demo with Local CA. The control plane generates RSA-2048 keys server-side. A log warning is emitted at startup.

Authentication

• Agent-to-server: API key (registered at agent creation)
• API key and JWT auth types supported; none for demo/development
• Auth type and secret configured via CERTCTL_AUTH_TYPE and CERTCTL_AUTH_SECRET

Audit Trail

• Immutable append-only log in PostgreSQL (audit_events table)
• Every lifecycle action attributed to an actor with timestamp and resource reference
• No update or delete operations on audit records
• Every API call recorded to audit trail with method, path, actor, SHA-256 body hash, response status, and latency (M19)

Roadmap

V1 (v1.0.0 released)

All nine development milestones (M1–M9) are complete. The backend covers the full certificate lifecycle: Local CA and ACME v2 issuers, NGINX/Apache/HAProxy/F5/IIS target connectors, threshold-based expiration alerting, agent-side ECDSA P-256 key generation, API auth with rate limiting, and a full React dashboard wired to the real API. The CI pipeline runs build, vet, test with coverage gates (service layer 30%+, handler layer 50%+), frontend type checking, Vitest test suite, and Vite production build on every push. Docker images are published to GitHub Container Registry on every version tag via the release workflow.

V2: Operational Maturity

• M10: Agent Metadata + Targets ✅ — agents report OS, architecture, IP, hostname, version via heartbeat; Apache httpd and HAProxy target connectors
• M11: Crypto Policy + Profiles + Ownership ✅ — certificate profiles (named enrollment profiles with allowed key types, max TTL, crypto constraints), certificate ownership tracking (owners + teams + notification routing), dynamic agent groups (OS/arch/IP CIDR/version matching), interactive renewal approval (AwaitingApproval state)
• M12: Sub-CA + DNS-01 + step-ca ✅ — Local CA sub-CA mode (enterprise root chain with RSA/ECDSA/PKCS#8), ACME DNS-01 challenges (script-based DNS hooks for any provider, wildcard cert support), ACME DNS-PERSIST-01 challenges (standing TXT record, no per-renewal DNS updates, auto-fallback to dns-01), step-ca issuer connector (native /sign API with JWK provisioner auth)
• M15a: Core Revocation ✅ — revocation API with all RFC 5280 reason codes, JSON CRL endpoint, webhook + email revocation notifications, best-effort issuer notification, certificate_revocations table with idempotent recording, 48 new tests
• M15b: OCSP + Revocation GUI ✅ — embedded OCSP responder (GET /api/v1/ocsp/{issuer_id}/{serial}), DER-encoded X.509 CRL (GET /api/v1/crl/{issuer_id}), short-lived cert exemption (TTL < 1h skip CRL/OCSP), revocation GUI with reason modal, ~31 new tests
• M13: GUI Operations ✅ — bulk cert operations (multi-select → renew, revoke, reassign owner), deployment status timeline, inline policy/profile editor, target connector configuration wizard, audit trail export (CSV/JSON), short-lived credentials dashboard view
• M14: Observability ✅ — dashboard charts (expiration heatmap, cert status distribution, job trends, issuance rate), agent fleet overview with OS/arch grouping, JSON metrics endpoint, stats API (5 endpoints), structured logging with request IDs, deployment rollback
• M18a: MCP Server ✅ (V2.1) — AI-native integration, all 78 REST API endpoints exposed as MCP tools for Claude, Cursor, OpenClaw, and any MCP-compatible client
• M19: Immutable API Audit Log ✅ — every API call recorded to immutable audit trail (method, path, actor, SHA-256 body hash, status, latency), async recording via goroutine, configurable path exclusions
• M16a: Notifier Connectors ✅ — Slack (incoming webhook), Microsoft Teams (MessageCard), PagerDuty (Events API v2), OpsGenie (Alert API v2) — config-driven enablement via env vars
• M17: Additional Connectors ✅ — OpenSSL/Custom CA issuer connector (script-based signing with configurable timeout)
• M16b: CLI + Bulk Import ✅ — certctl-cli with 12 subcommands (certs list/get/renew/revoke, agents list/get, jobs list/get/cancel, import, status, version), stdlib-only, JSON/table output
• M20: Enhanced Query API ✅ — sparse field selection (?fields=), sort with direction (?sort=-notAfter), time-range filters (expires_before, created_after, etc.), cursor-based pagination (?cursor=&page_size=), GET /certificates/{id}/deployments, additional filters (agent_id, profile_id)
• M18b: Filesystem Cert Discovery ✅ — agents scan configured directories (PEM/DER), report findings to control plane, deduplication by SHA-256 fingerprint, claim/dismiss/triage workflow via API
• M21: Network Cert Discovery ✅ — server-side active TLS scanning of CIDR ranges and ports, concurrent probing (50 goroutines), CIDR expansion with /20 safety cap, sentinel agent pattern for discovery pipeline reuse, CRUD API for scan targets, scheduler integration (6h default)
• M22: Prometheus Metrics ✅ — GET /api/v1/metrics/prometheus returns Prometheus exposition format (text/plain; version=0.0.4), 11 metrics with certctl_ prefix, compatible with Prometheus, Grafana Agent, Datadog Agent, Victoria Metrics
• M23: EST Server (RFC 7030) ✅ — Enrollment over Secure Transport for device/WiFi certificate enrollment, 4 endpoints under /.well-known/est/, PKCS#7 certs-only wire format, base64-encoded DER CSR input, configurable issuer + profile binding, audit trail, 28 new tests
• Compliance Mapping ✅ — SOC 2 Type II, PCI-DSS 4.0, NIST SP 800-57 capability mapping documentation
• M24: S/MIME Certificate Support (Planned — v2.0.2) — wire profile EKU constraints through the issuance pipeline so certctl can issue S/MIME (emailProtection), code signing, and custom EKU certificates, not just TLS
• M25: Traefik + Caddy Targets (Planned — v2.1.x) — Traefik (file provider, auto-reload on filesystem change) and Caddy (Admin API, hot-reload) deployment target connectors
• M26: Certificate Export (Planned — v2.1.x) — single-certificate download in PFX/PKCS12, DER, and PEM formats with optional chain inclusion, GUI download button on certificate detail page

V3: certctl Pro

Team access controls, identity provider integration, enterprise deployment targets, compliance and risk scoring, advanced fleet operations, event-driven architecture, advanced search, real-time operational views, and premium CA integrations.

V4+: Cloud, Scale & Passive Discovery

Passive network discovery (TLS listener), Kubernetes integration (cert-manager external issuer, Secrets target), cloud infrastructure targets (AWS ALB/ACM, Azure Key Vault), extended CA support (Vault PKI, Google CAS, EJBCA), and platform-scale features (Terraform provider, multi-tenancy, HSM support).

License

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 offer certctl as a managed/hosted certificate management service to third parties.