Develop Reference

Convert elliptic curve private key to (unencrypted) PKCS#8 format

I am trying to convert EC private key
-----BEGIN EC PRIVATE KEY-----
MHcCAQEEIE2tzb8O0gBVw2IFOB/B8l1Ztjax3ut4DeNtuC3UMmZ6oAoGCCqGSM49
AwEHoUQDQgAEayT6Tv8zZlpIUOKHEYnmsKZyTaqOHajL0InS4c5tK4fhkHZDSWUa
3tPl1ibIXt0LvaxHk47h0Tc4SGr3Ex8Bhg==
-----END EC PRIVATE KEY-----
to Private Key
-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
MIGHAgEAMBMGByqGSM49AgEGCCqGSM49AwEHBG0wawIBAQQgTa3Nvw7SAFXDYgU4
H8HyXVm2NrHe63gN4224LdQyZnqhRANCAARrJPpO/zNmWkhQ4ocRieawpnJNqo4d
qMvQidLhzm0rh+GQdkNJZRre0+XWJshe3Qu9rEeTjuHRNzhIavcTHwGG
-----END PRIVATE KEY-----
It's very easy when you execute openSsl command like this:
openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -nocrypt -in ec1.pem -out ec2.pem
But i want to do this in Java way and didn't find any solution (tried so many from stackoverflow).
So i have for now following class:
ECNamedCurveParameterSpec ecNamedCurveParameterSpec = ECNamedCurveTable.getParameterSpec("prime256v1");
KeyPairGenerator keyPair = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("ECDSA", "BC");
// Create a secure random number generator using the SHA1PRNG algorithm
SecureRandom secureRandomGenerator = SecureRandom.getInstance("SHA1PRNG");
keyPair.initialize(ecNamedCurveParameterSpec, secureRandomGenerator);
Then i generate KeyPair and get PrivateKey in ECPrivateKey Object:
KeyPair pair =keyPair.generateKeyPair();
ECPrivateKey privateKey = (ECPrivateKey) pair.getPrivate();
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
try (JcaPEMWriter jcaPEMWriter = new JcaPEMWriter(sw);) {
jcaPEMWriter.writeObject(privateKey);
}
String pemFormat = sw.toString();
This string pemFormat is actually PEM format that starts with BEGIN EC PRIVATE KEY
How can i convert it just to BEGIN PRIVATE KEY?
I assume that should be a way if openSsl can do it.

A conversion from the SEC1/PEM (-----BEGIN EC PRIVATE KEY-----...) to the PKCS#8/PEM format (-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----...) is not needed at all, because privateKey.getEncoded() returns the key already in PKCS#8 format. So it only needs to be exported as PEM e.g. with a PemWriter:
import org.bouncycastle.util.io.pem.PemWriter;
...
// Your code
Security.addProvider(new org.bouncycastle.jce.provider.BouncyCastleProvider());
...
ECPrivateKey privateKey = (ECPrivateKey)pair.getPrivate();
System.out.println(privateKey.getFormat()); // PKCS#8
// Export as PKCS#8 PEM encoded key via PemWriter
StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
try (PemWriter pemWriter = new PemWriter(stringWriter)){
pemWriter.writeObject((PemObjectGenerator)new PemObject("PRIVATE KEY", privateKey.getEncoded()));
}
String pkcs8PEM = stringWriter.toString();
System.out.println(pkcs8PEM); // -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----MIGTAg...-----END PRIVATE KEY-----
You can check the format in an ASN.1 parser, e.g. https://lapo.it/asn1js.
However, if you are really looking for an explicit conversion of a SEC1/PEM key into a PKCS#8/PEM key, then the import of a SEC1/PEM key is described e.g. here. The imported key can then be exported as a PKCS#8/PEM key using a PemWriter as in the example above.

Bouncycastle can't generate private key - Unknown KeySpec type: java.security.spec.X509EncodedKeySpec

I can't generate private key with bouncycastle due to Unknown KeySpec type: java.security.spec.X509EncodedKeySpec. (However doing same for public key doesn't throw exception and works - why?)
java.security.spec.InvalidKeySpecException: Unknown KeySpec type:
java.security.spec.X509EncodedKeySpec at
org.bouncycastle.jcajce.provider.asymmetric.rsa.KeyFactorySpi.engineGeneratePrivate(Unknown
Source) at
java.security.KeyFactory.generatePrivate(KeyFactory.java:366)
PemReader pemReader = new PemReader(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream("private_unencrypted.pem")));
PemObject pemObject = pemReader.readPemObject();
pemReader.close();
KeyFactory keyFactory = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA", "BC");
byte[] privateKeyBytes = pemObject.getContent();
X509EncodedKeySpec x509KeySpec = new X509EncodedKeySpec(privateKeyBytes);
PrivateKey privateKey = keyFactory.generatePrivate(x509KeySpec);

For RSA private keys you should be using PKCS8EncodedKeySpec if your key is encoded in PKCS8 format. PKCS8 format usually looks like :
-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
base64 encoded der key
-----END PRIVATE KEY-----
If your key is in PKCS1 format and looks like :
-----BEGIN RSA RIVATE KEY-----
base64 der encoded key
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
you should first convert it to PKCS8 format and then use the class mentioned above.
However doing same for public key doesn't throw exception and works - why?
Because public keys, which are usually part of Certificates, are encoded in X509 format, however private keys are usually encoded in PKCS format.

Converting a string private key to PrivateKey type

I am having below RSA private key in string format.
String privatekey = -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----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-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
I am trying to convert this to PrivateKey type using below code snippet-
public PrivateKey generatePrivateKey(String privateKey) throws Exception{
privateKey = privateKey.replace("-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----", "");
privateKey = privateKey.replace("-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----", "");
privateKey = privateKey.replaceAll("\\s+", "");
PKCS8EncodedKeySpec keySpec = new PKCS8EncodedKeySpec(privateKey.getBytes());
KeyFactory kf = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");
return kf.generatePrivate(keySpec);
}
I am getting below error -
It is giving me an error on generatePrivate method.
Execution exception[[InvalidKeySpecException: java.security.InvalidKeyException: invalid key format]]
Tried using the answer here Java: Convert DKIM private key from RSA to DER for JavaMail
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Base64;
public class pkcs1ToPkcs8 {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
String pkcs1 = //privatekey provided above
// b64 now contains the base64 "body" of the PEM-PKCS#1 file
byte[] oldder = Base64.getDecoder().decode(pkcs1.getBytes());
// concatenate the mostly-fixed prefix plus the PKCS#1 data
final byte[] prefix = {0x30,(byte)0x82,0,0, 2,1,0, // SEQUENCE(lenTBD) and version INTEGER
0x30,0x0d, 6,9,0x2a,(byte)0x86,0x48,(byte)0x86,(byte)0xf7,0x0d,1,1,1, 5,0, // AlgID for rsaEncryption,NULL
4,(byte)0x82,0,0 }; // OCTETSTRING(lenTBD)
byte[] newder = new byte [prefix.length + oldder.length];
System.arraycopy (prefix,0, newder,0, prefix.length);
System.arraycopy (oldder,0, newder,prefix.length, oldder.length);
// and patch the (variable) lengths to be correct
int len = oldder.length, loc = prefix.length-2;
newder[loc] = (byte)(len>>8); newder[loc+1] = (byte)len;
len = newder.length-4; loc = 2;
newder[loc] = (byte)(len>>8); newder[loc+1] = (byte)len;
FileOutputStream fo = new FileOutputStream ("pkcs8_file");
fo.write (newder); fo.close();
System.out.println ("converted length " + newder.length);
}
}

BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY means your key is pkcs#1 format and not pkcs#8. Reading pkcs#1 keys is not natively supported by Java. You need to use bouncycastle library ( see Read RSA private key of format PKCS1 in JAVA )or use any of these solutions Getting RSA private key from PEM BASE64 Encoded private key file
if your key were pkcs#8, it would have the header BEGIN PRIVATE KEY. In that case, for your code to work correctly you would need additionally decode the key content from base64
To convert a pkcs#1 key to pkcs#8 you can use openssl
openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -inform PEM -outform PEM -nocrypt -in pkcs1.key -out pkcs8.key

Java and Openssl generates different length of public keys for same private key

I used java to generate public key out of private key as follows,
Security.addProvider(new BouncyCastleProvider());
KeyPairGenerator kpg = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("RSA", "BC");
kpg.initialize(2048);
KeyPair kp = kpg.generateKeyPair();
PrivateKey priv = kp.getPrivate();
RSAPrivateCrtKey rsaCrtKey = (RSAPrivateCrtKey) priv;
RSAPublicKeySpec keyspecPublic = new RSAPublicKeySpec(rsaCrtKey.getModulus(), rsaCrtKey.getPublicExponent());
KeyFactory kf = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");
PublicKey publicKey2 = kf.generatePublic(keyspecPublic);
String publicString = Base64.getMimeEncoder().encodeToString(publicKey2.getEncoded());
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("");
sb.append("\"-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\\n")
.append(publicString)
.append("\\n-----END PUBLIC KEY-----");
And I generate public key using openssl as follows for same private key,
openssl rsa -in private.key -pubout -out public.key
But above two methods generate different lengths of strings as public key. Am I doing something wrong here?
public key from java code:
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEA6UkqbaGp7wOx2vrtqxmX/22ixKZcZPfZ
xXAawIst+AsWyNS+99MxnilstLIBKd6BCzJJsAa2I0ks43mnNZbkx1f1um+tQpXuTMbTh5MRprPn
jmX6aF+JXJbXATKhabTIQcCdpnrMi6scp9nWYkFdxVMfvo1gyThzfPwPgCO4eRFo1IkwZuergkl7
e0+U7WonqzFEb0joy5P78U+K8HebDW7nbS8zliq3DH2FI9yvEK3LeEN+Sa5icMWlERGv+7FCJVIH
CjBYfzaRZD9qqld/AnAEkCVt38SfSqWJECsnJYUW90WuFd8IxUVPS0TMfFMQhJFMT3eGweBOUb/b
pDm/hQIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
Public key from openssl :
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEA6UkqbaGp7wOx2vrtqxmX
/22ixKZcZPfZxXAawIst+AsWyNS+99MxnilstLIBKd6BCzJJsAa2I0ks43mnNZbk
x1f1um+tQpXuTMbTh5MRprPnjmX6aF+JXJbXATKhabTIQcCdpnrMi6scp9nWYkFd
xVMfvo1gyThzfPwPgCO4eRFo1IkwZuergkl7e0+U7WonqzFEb0joy5P78U+K8Heb
DW7nbS8zliq3DH2FI9yvEK3LeEN+Sa5icMWlERGv+7FCJVIHCjBYfzaRZD9qqld/
AnAEkCVt38SfSqWJECsnJYUW90WuFd8IxUVPS0TMfFMQhJFMT3eGweBOUb/bpDm/
hQIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

The keys are identical, and will decode to the same byte content.
Formatting-wise, the Java one is wrapped at 76 columns and the OpenSSL one is wrapped at 64 columns.
If you want to make the wrapping consistent, use the Base64.getMimeEncoder(int lineLength, byte[] lineSeparator) overloaded method that lets you specify the line length and pass 64 as the lineLength parameter.
Base64.getMimeEncoder(64, new byte[] {'\r', '\n'});

Read encrypted PKCS8 SpongyCastle Java

I am following the code in: https://stackoverflow.com/a/18161536/1753951 but I am getting an Exception in the following line:
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(priv);
DataInputStream dis = new DataInputStream(fis);
byte[] keyBytes = new byte[(int)priv.length()];
dis.readFully(keyBytes);
dis.close();
javax.crypto.EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo encryptPKInfo = new EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo(keyBytes);
//Exception:
org.apache.harmony.security.asn1.ASN1Exception: Wrong content length
I am trying to read a .key/.pem PKCS8 file which is:
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
Proc-Type: 4,ENCRYPTED
DEK Info: AES-256-CBC,8AFF348907C84F2F6370A216DC0D55D9
1VIjJD3dZ5/wYnIm0mtp8d22RC24yGcY9LXgeHUDbyPJQa8PjupubFqKrpOodvQx
dPfE1F3XeY8oVG42ZfR4287X4V16n++BQCeDiuvyrwacLMAuQz6PFLT4b/Py89Cm
761UZpaWnH0PHfJqB9CHqC+pGAGfRF5vj7UtdNchCwBmo+7gvU5iGyYXNRJ/hPnU
V+8QDzro4kFIMOlDzHaJ3KN1Ftbb9LDjDNE/NShbRrAFAWJMZSY/ZjF8mfqggkoZ
%%%%% SKIPPED MOST OF IT %%%%%%%%%%
BMIl0y5XVgPwkApA30EdgV4YAZEJ+wQLnYIZfCklqzvCfyjxHFViVW6d41WNm8bx
wl28v4QJKlnf7KNcmmGwSmjKo7BEASSZ+XVYRu0R6FaE+Job5YzPrtUI+p/kf7et
Y+jUDbZ4BPvB8j2ZscNRs+pJkEXxPt5JKW/oQMQZPlbTtSV5K1IqiuVcRi9TbCzk
nWDSfI/wxt6cK3X9XvyOpOZDCDPchkIhDhCzfitd7fzkM1VBekwsliJwjgc1bwbc
nI4AhQcNb8li7oX1M2osyeR3zF25BDb2A04Zm1lMrWkFrypb24DKkSJxYEH33Gpu
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

After looking long time for a solution I stumbled with a library that helps me and works on android.
Not-Yet-Commons
http://juliusdavies.ca/commons-ssl/
FileInputStream in = new FileInputStream( "/path/to/pkcs8_private_key.der" );
PKCS8Key pkcs8 = new PKCS8Key( in, "changeit".toCharArray() );
byte[] decrypted = pkcs8.getDecryptedBytes();
PKCS8EncodedKeySpec spec = new PKCS8EncodedKeySpec( decrypted );
// A Java PrivateKey object is born.
PrivateKey pk = null;
if ( pkcs8.isDSA() )
{
pk = KeyFactory.getInstance( "DSA" ).generatePrivate( spec );
}
else if ( pkcs8.isRSA() )
{
pk = KeyFactory.getInstance( "RSA" ).generatePrivate( spec );
}
// For lazier types (like me):
pk = pkcs8.getPrivateKey();

javax.crypto.EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo expects a DER-encoded input, while the contents of your file are obviously in the PEM encoding.
The relation between PEM and DER is this:
The DER is the actual ASN.1-encoded data as a sequence of bytes.
The PEM is text-based with all these -----BEGIN SOMETHING----- and -----END SOMETHING----- headers and Base64-encoded data inside. Basically, PEM is header+Base64(DER)+footer.
You need to convert your key into DER format, for example using the OpenSSL pkey command:
openssl pkey -in key.pem -outform DER -out key.der