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Server Fault / certutil: function failed: security library: bad database

 25 votesby serverfault.com/users/126492written 2012-08-06last updated 2015-12-29

when I'm using certutil it returns this error: certutil: function failed: security library: bad database.

e.g. I can't list certs or keys

How Can I fix this?

Server Fault / certutil: function failed: security library: bad database

 36 votesby serverfault.com/users/141189written 2012-10-15

If it is new system, your certificate database might not be initialized. To fix this, perform:

mkdir -p $HOME/.pki/nssdb
certutil -d $HOME/.pki/nssdb -N

Server Fault / certutil: function failed: security library: bad database

 2 votesby serverfault.com/users/151182written 2012-12-28last updated 2012-12-28

If you want to display certifications from a specific folder (for example, the folder which stores the cert8.db file for Firefox), you need to specify the folder with "-d":

nss-certutil -d /Users/myuser/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/jii912uh.default -L

Otherwise, nss-certutil may try to read *.db files from ~/.netscape folder, or maybe $HOME/.pki/nssdb as previous user mentioned.

Server Fault / certutil: function failed: security library: bad database

 8 votesby serverfault.com/users/183579written 2013-07-30

In case database already has been initialised, but still is corrupted then it has to be rebuild:

$ mv ~/.pki/nssdb ~/.pki/nssdb.corrupted
$ mkdir ~/.pki/nssdb
$ chmod 700 ~/.pki/nssdb
$ certutil -d sql:$HOME/.pki/nssdb -N

Check if working alright

$ certutil -d sql:$HOME/.pki/nssdb -L
Certificate Nickname                                         Trust Attributes
                                                             SSL,S/MIME,JAR/XPI

Import certificate

$ certutil -d sql:$HOME/.pki/nssdb -A -t "C,," -n GoAgent -i ~/programs/goagent/local/CA.crt

Server Fault / certutil: function failed: security library: bad database

 0 votesby serverfault.com/users/188342written 2013-09-03

In my case I solved problem using this solution (Windows XP, nss 3.15.1):

cd /dir/with/database
C:/full/path/to/certutil.exe -L -d .

Server Fault / certutil: function failed: security library: bad database

 1 voteby serverfault.com/users/307855written 2015-09-01

Also check the -d directory path (must point to the directory) have any space or not. With space it gives the same error or bad file format error - old database format etc. Specially in Mac the folder is in "Application Support" which contains space. So have the path fully quoted:

"/Users/myuser/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/jii912uh.default"

or add the \ escape character. 

 /Users/myuser/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/jii912uh.default

And check that the folder have the following files, cert8.db, key3.db and secmob.db.

Server Fault / certutil: function failed: security library: bad database

 1 voteby serverfault.com/users/116568written 2022-01-24last updated 2023-09-07

Quite an old question, but the mentioned solutions did not work for me, because the error was caused by incorrect shell expansion.

In my case, I had to replace ~ with $HOME, e.g.

certutil -d sql:~/.pki/nssdb -A -t "C,," -n KEY_NAME -i ~/path_to_the_key/key.cert

became

certutil -d sql:$HOME/.pki/nssdb -A -t "C,," -n KEY_NAME -i $HOME/path_to_the_key/key.cert