Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME)

This module provides a proof of concept implementation of the ACME protocol for certificate management. Its main functions are:

• Validation of domain possession
• Certificate issuance
• Certificate revocation

The module provides both client and server implementations. For full details of the protocol, see the ACME protocol specification.

Quickstart

> npm install node-acme
> node node-acme/demo.js

Client Side

An ACME client represents a certificate subject, such as a web server. For example, you might use ACME to acquire a certificate when a new web server instance starts up. This module provides both a fine-grained client interface and a simple one-line call to get a certificate.

// The easy way
var certificateInfo;
acme.getMeACertificate(serverURL, domain, function(result) {
  // Result has authorizedKeyPair, subjectKeyPair,
  //            recoveryKey, certificate
});

// The hard way
var client = acme.createClient(serverURL);
var authorizedKeyPair = client.generateKey(keySize);
var subjectKeyPair = client.generateKey(keySize);
client.authorizeKeyPair(authorizedKeyPair, domain, function(result) {
  // Result has a recovery key
  
  client.issueCertificate(authorizedKeyPair, subjectKeyPair,
                          domain, function(result) {
    // Result has certificate
  }
});

Server side

An ACME server represents a CA in the management process. Right now, the server interface is fairly basic. When started with no parameters it will generate a new CA. The state of the server can can be retrieved using the getState method, and used to restart the server in the same state later.

var server = acme.createServer();
server.listen(8888);
// ... handle some client transactions ...
server.close();

TODO

• Enable HTTPS on client and server
• Implement additional domain validation mechansims
• Provide better server interface for managing the CA / server
• Support SANs and requests for certificates for multiple names
• Test that issued certs work in browsers (with the TA installed)