NetWorker: NMC GST service starts then immediately shuts down after replacing cakey.pem

Summary: The NetWorker Management Console (NMC) GST service starts then immediately shuts down after replacing cakey.pem.

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Symptoms

  • GST service starts then immediately shuts down after replacing the NMC server's GST certificate cakey.pem
  • Error in the gstd.log 
gstd Error getting certificate and private key for SSL 
gstd gstd: gt_server: library error 0 os error 0 

NetWorker: How to use nsr_render_log

Cause

The certificate and key were extracted from a wrong openssl version.

Resolution

NetWorker has the following OpenSSL requirements:

  • NetWorker 19.8 and prior require openssl version 1.0.2
  • NetWorker 19.9 through 19.11 require openssl version 1.1.1n 
  • NetWorker 19.12.0.0 (Linux only) supports openssl version 3.0.14
  • NetWorker 19.12.0.2 (Windows only) supports openssl version 3.0.14

Linux:

openssl version

Windows:

openssl version
NOTE: If openssl.exe is not in the system PATH, the openssl command only works when run from the directory containing openssl.exe. Either change directory (cd) from the command-line to the location containing openssl.exe, or open the properties of the openssl.exe file. The location of openssl.exe can vary depending on how and where OpenSSL was installed:

openssl version details

On Windows, this issue can appear even when the correct openssl version is used. The problem also appears due to an encoding issue of the cakey.pem file: NetWorker: Windows NMC server fails to start GSTD service after replacing certificates

NOTE: For detailed instructions on the NMC certificate replacement procedure, see: NetWorker: How to Import or Replace Certificate Authority-Signed Certificates for NMC

Additional Information

The problem outlined in this KB is specific to replacing the cakey.pem used by the NetWorker Management Console (NMC). No OpenSSL restrictions were observed when following the process to replace self-signed authc/nwui certificates with CA signed certificates.

Article Properties
Article Number: 000217780
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 12 Aug 2025
Version:  6
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