crypto-utils September 2004 certwatch 1 certwatch generate SSL certificate expiry warnings certwatch -q 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 (when the -q argument is given), no output is ever produced. In both modes of operation, 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. /etc/cron.daily/certwatch