← Directory

Step Certificates

Step Certificates is a self-hosted online certificate authority (CA) server that automates TLS certificate issuance and management for services, devices, and…

  • Security
  • Tools & Utilities
Step Certificates is a self-hosted online certificate authority (CA) server that automates TLS certificate issuance and management for services, devices, and internal APIs.

Platform availability

Available on 1 of 9 platforms

  • Unraid (not listed)
  • TrueNAS (not listed)
  • Umbrel (not listed)
  • ZimaOS (not listed)
  • Proxmox (not listed)
  • Helm
  • Mac (not listed)
  • Windows (not listed)
  • Linux (not listed)

Health score?A 0-100 score computed nightly from four factors: maintained (40%: recent commits and steady activity), popular (25%: GitHub stars, log scale), easy to install (20%: platforms, install notes, setup guides, Docker image) and light to run (15%: minimum RAM, ARM support). When the source code has been checked, a fifth factor, security check (20%: automated scan for committed secrets, unsafe desktop-app settings, known-vulnerable dependencies and project hygiene; any serious finding caps it at 20), is added. Factors without data are left out and the rest are rescaled.

76/100 Good

Maintained
100last commit 2 days ago
Popular
798,993 GitHub stars
Easy to install
251 install platform, install notes
Light to run
No data

Based on 3 of 4 factors.

Availability: platform listings confirmed today

No GitHub repository data collected yet.

Resources & Compatibility

Requirements not published yet.

First-install notes

  • Use the alias ARN for a pinned version When starting the app, pass the alias ARN (a named pointer to a specific version) if you want that exact version to run. If you use the state machine ARN instead, AWS may run the newest revision, which can make behavior inconsistent. source
  • Pair with the Step CLI Use the step CLI client to work with the certificates and keys issued by this certificate authority. source

Fetched today - each note links to its source

Alternatives

No alternatives collected yet.

Common questions

Can Step Certificates be used for SSH authentication instead of public keys?

It can delegate SSH authentication by issuing SSH certificates instead of using public keys and authorized_keys files. User certificates can also connect SSH to an OAuth OIDC single sign-on provider for short-lived certificates and MFA.

Does Step Certificates support ACME and Yubikey use in a homelab?

A community setup describes using step-ca as a homelab CA with ACME support and a Yubikey.

How do I generate certificates for individual services after installing Step CA?

After the PKI is ready, use step help ca to see the commands for generating certificates for individual services.

How can a home-lab certificate authority like Step Certificates reduce CRL and OCSP problems?

CRLs and OCSP rely on clients to actively check validity and can cause performance issues in certain contexts. Very short-lived certificates can eliminate the need for those revocation mechanisms.

Answers sourced from github.com, github.com, lostintransit.se, www.reddit.com

Community

No community discussions collected yet.