Try the `upki` preview for Ubuntu

This article was originally posted on the Ubuntu Discourse, and is reposted here. I welcome comments and further discussion in that thread. The development of upki has been steadily progressing over the past few months. Since my last update, the project has released a beta version of the CLI tool and library, and the Ubuntu Foundations team has released a preview that users of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Ubuntu 26.10 development snapshots can try out. The preview is still experimental, but it contains both the upki client packages, and the initial OpenSSL integration. An instance of the upki mirror which serves the CRLite filter data is being hosted in Canonical’s infrastructure at upki.ubuntu.com. In this post I’ll briefly recap what upki is trying to achieve, cover the infrastructure and packaging work that has landed, and show how to try the preview on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS or Ubuntu 26.10. Recap: what is upki? Linux has long had a gap in how it handles Web PKI data outside browsers. Firefox…