XCA - X Certificate and Key management

XCA - X Certificate and Key management at a glance

XCA (X Certificate and Key management) is an open-source tool for managing certificates, keys, and a small in-house public key infrastructure. System administrators use it to set up internal certificate authorities, create and sign certificate signing requests, and generate and manage RSA, DSA, and EC keys. The database can be stored as a single file (SQLite) or in a relational database such as MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, or MS SQL Server, making it suitable for team or larger-scale environments as well.

Development happens publicly on GitHub, where new versions are published as releases. A changelog documents the differences between versions. New releases typically include bug fixes, minor feature additions, and updates to the bundled or referenced OpenSSL and Qt libraries.

When updating, administrators should pay attention to changes in the database format, since older XCA versions cannot always read newer database structures, and incompatible format changes have occurred in the past. It is advisable to back up the XCA database file before upgrading and to review the release notes for migration steps or compatibility breaks, especially when jumping across major versions.