Openssl convert .PEM containing only RSA Private Key to .PKCS12

opensslpempkcs#12rsa

Currently I have a .PEM file containing only a private key. I need to convert this file into a .PKCS12 file. Currently I'm trying to use openssl to achieve this and I'm running into some problems.

The .PEM file I'm using is of the form:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Some key

-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

I use the following Openssl command to attempt to convert this .PEM file into a .PKCS12:

openssl pkcs12 -export -inkey file.pem -out file.p12

The console then hangs with the message:

Loading 'screen' into random state -done

What am Im doing wrong?

Any help would be appriciated.

Best Answer

I ran into this problem and resolved it by adding the -nocerts option after export. My guess regarding the cause of the "freeze up" is that openssl is probably trying to read additional input from the console.

openssl pkcs12 -export -nocerts -inkey your.private.key.pem -out your.private.key.p12

Related Solutions

How to get .pem file from .key and .crt files

Your keys may already be in PEM format, but just named with .crt or .key.

If the file's content begins with -----BEGIN and you can read it in a text editor:

The file uses base64, which is readable in ASCII, not binary format. The certificate is already in PEM format. Just change the extension to .pem.

If the file is in binary:

For the server.crt, you would use

openssl x509 -inform DER -outform PEM -in server.crt -out server.crt.pem

For server.key, use openssl rsa in place of openssl x509.

The server.key is likely your private key, and the .crt file is the returned, signed, x509 certificate.

If this is for a Web server and you cannot specify loading a separate private and public key:

You may need to concatenate the two files. For this use:

cat server.crt server.key > server.includesprivatekey.pem

I would recommend naming files with "includesprivatekey" to help you manage the permissions you keep with this file.

Use RSA private key to generate public key

openssl genrsa -out mykey.pem 1024

will actually produce a public - private key pair. The pair is stored in the generated mykey.pem file.

openssl rsa -in mykey.pem -pubout > mykey.pub

will extract the public key and print that out. Here is a link to a page that describes this better.

EDIT: Check the examples section here. To just output the public part of a private key:

openssl rsa -in key.pem -pubout -out pubkey.pem

To get a usable public key for SSH purposes, use ssh-keygen:

ssh-keygen -y -f key.pem > key.pub

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to get .pem file from .key and .crt files

Use RSA private key to generate public key

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