certwatch [OPTION...] filename

The certwatch program is used to issue warning mail when an SSL certificate is about to expire.

The program has two modes of operation: normal mode and quiet mode. In normal mode, the certificate given by the filename argument is examined, and a warning email is issued to standard output if the certificate is outside its validity period, or approaching expiry. If the certificate cannot be found, or any errors occur whilst parsing the certificate, the certificate is ignored and no output is produced. In quiet mode, no output is given, but the exit status can still be used.

--quiet, -q

Enable quiet mode; no output is produced whether the certificate is expired or not

--period days, -p days

Specify the number of days within which an expiry warning will be produced; default is 30. Expiry warnings are always produced if, on the day of invocation, the certificate is not yet valid, has already expired, or is due to expire either that day or the following day.

--address address, -a address

Specify the address used in the To field of the warning e-mail issued if quiet mode is not enabled. The default is root.

The exit code indicates the state of the certificate:

0

The certificate is outside its validity period, or approaching expiry

1

The certificate is inside its validity period, or could not be parsed

The certwatch program is run daily by crond from the file /etc/cron.daily/certwatch to warn about the imminent expiry of SSL certificates configured for use in the Apache HTTP server. This warning can be disabled by adding the line: NOCERTWATCH=yes to the file /etc/sysconfig/httpd. Options to pass to certwatch can be specified in that file in the CERTWATCH_OPTS environment variable.

/etc/cron.daily/certwatch

genkey(1)