OSSL_PROVIDER-default - OpenSSL default provider The OpenSSL default provider supplies the majority of OpenSSL's diverse algorithm implementations. If an application doesn't specify anything else explicitly (e.g. in the application or via config), then this is the provider that will be used as fallback: It is loaded automatically the first time that an algorithm is fetched from a provider or a function acting on providers is called and no other provider has been loaded yet. If an attempt to load a provider has already been made (whether successful or not) then the default provider won't be loaded automatically. Therefore if the default provider is to be used in conjunction with other providers then it must be loaded explicitly. Automatic loading of the default provider only occurs a maximum of once; if the default provider is explicitly unloaded then the default provider will not be automatically loaded again.

Properties
The implementations in this provider specifically have this property defined: It may be used in a property query string with fetching functions such as EVP_MD_fetch(3) or EVP_CIPHER_fetch(3), as well as with other functions that take a property query string, such as EVP_PKEY_CTX_new_from_name(3). It isn't mandatory to query for this property, except to make sure to get implementations of this provider and none other. Some implementations may define additional properties. Exact information is listed below The OpenSSL default provider supports these operations and algorithms:

Hashing Algorithms / Message Digests

Symmetric Ciphers

Message Authentication Code (MAC)

Key Derivation Function (KDF)

Key Exchange

Asymmetric Signature

Asymmetric Cipher

Asymmetric Key Encapsulation

Asymmetric Key Management

Random Number Generation
In addition to this provider, the "SEED-SRC" and "JITTER" algorithms are also available in the base provider.

Asymmetric Key Encoder
In addition to this provider, all of these encoding algorithms are also available in the base provider. Some of these algorithms may be used in combination with the FIPS provider.

Asymmetric Key Decoder
In addition to this provider, all of these decoding algorithms are also available in the base provider. Some of these algorithms may be used in combination with the FIPS provider.

Stores
In addition to this provider, all of these store algorithms are also available in the base provider. openssl-core.h(7), openssl-core_dispatch.h(7), provider(7), OSSL_PROVIDER-base(7) The RIPEMD160 digest was added to the default provider in OpenSSL 3.0.7. The HKDF-SHA256, HKDF-SHA384 and HKDF-SHA512 algorithms were added in OpenSSL 3.6. All other functionality was added in OpenSSL 3.0. Copyright 2020-2025 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved. Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You can obtain a copy in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at <https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.