It seems that CERTDB_TERMINAL_RECORD being set to true means that the trust record is authoritative, at which point it checks for either CERTDB_TRUSTED or CERTDB_TRUSTED_CA being true. If that's the case, then the certificate is trusted, otherwise it is distrusted.
Throughout lib/certhigh/certvfy.c you'll see variations on: case certUsageSSLCA: flags = trust.sslFlags; if (flags & CERTDB_TERMINAL_RECORD) { /* the trust record is * authoritative */ if ((flags & (CERTDB_TRUSTED | CERTDB_TRUSTED_CA)) == 0) { /* don't trust this cert */ *failedFlags = flags; return SECFailure; } } break; The -t p option sets CERTDB_TERMINAL_RECORD while the -t P and -t C set CERTDB_TRUSTED and CERTDB_TRUSTED_CA respectively. Without the latter two (that is, with just -t p ) the certificate is explicitly distrusted as per the latest online certutil documentation. It seems that the src man pages haven't been updated. An older version (from Sept 2014) at https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/NSS/Tools/certutil agrees with the current man page in the src package. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1586538 Title: certutils from libnss3-tools - man page contradicts Mozilla's To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nss/+bug/1586538/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs