Next Previous Contents

2. Miscellaneous

2.1 Updating from Older Versions (Older than 0.6.0)

Older versions of XCA used a Berkely database for storing the crypto items. Starting from version 0.6.0 this has changed to a simple endian independent file format for several reasons:

Since XCA 0.6.0 is not compiled with Berkeley DB support it cannot read old file formats. The extension of files has changed from *.db to *.xdb . Importing old databases is done by the following steps:

2.2 Download

The most recent stable version of XCA can be downloaded from XCA download

The current (unstable) HEAD of development can be downloaded and tested via XCA devel on github Please do not hesitate to contact me for information about branches.

2.3 DH Parameters

Diffie Hellman parameters can be created by XCA. It does neither need nor use the parameters. Applications like OpenVPN however need them and so XCA provides this functionality for users convenience.

2.4 Entropy sources for XCA

Entropy is a very important topic for key generation. OpenSSL comes with a good pseudo random number generator. XCA seeds it very thoroughly.

  1. During startup
  2. Before any key or parameter generation a "reseeding" is done. Some say reseeding is not neccessary, but all say it does not harm.
  3. A .rnd state file in the XCA application directory is written whenever XCA finishes.
  4. When managing a token or generating a key on a token that supports C_GenerateRandom and C_SeedRandom, XCA will:


Next Previous Contents