openssl-pkey
(1ssl)public or private key processing command
Options
23-helpPrint out a usage message.
-engineidSee "Engine Options" in openssl(1). This option is deprecated.
-providername—
-provider-pathpath—
-provparam[name:]key=value—
-propquerypropqSee "Provider Options" in openssl(1), provider(7), and property(7).
-checkThis option checks the consistency of a key pair for both public and private components.
-pubcheckThis option checks the correctness of either a public key or the public component of a key pair.
-infilenameThis specifies the input file to read a key from or standard input if this option is not specified. If the key input is encrypted and -passin is not given a pass phrase will be prompted for.
-informThe key input format; unspecified by default. See openssl-format-options(1) for details.
-passinargThe password source for the key input. For more information about the format of arg see openssl-passphrase-options(1).
-pubinBy default a private key is read from the input. With this option a public key is read instead. If the input contains no public key but a private key, its public part is used.
-outfilenameThis specifies the output file to save the encoded and/or text output of key or standard output if this option is not specified. The output filename can be the same as the input filename, which leads to replacing the file contents. Note that file I/O is not atomic. The output file is truncated and then written. If any cipher option is set but no -passout is given then a pass phrase will be prompted for. When password input is interrupted, the output file is not touched.
-outformThe key output format; the default is PEM. See openssl-format-options(1) for details.
-ciphercipherEncrypt the PEM encoded private key with the supplied cipher. Any algorithm name accepted by EVP_get_cipherbyname() is acceptable such as aes128. Encryption is not supported for DER output.
-passoutargThe password source for the output file. For more information about the format of arg see openssl-passphrase-options(1).
-traditionalNormally a private key is written using standard format: this is PKCS#8 form with the appropriate encryption algorithm (if any). If the -traditional option is specified then the older "traditional" format is used instead.
-puboutBy default the private and public key is output; this option restricts the output to the public components. This option is automatically set if the input is a public key. When combined with -text, this is equivalent to -text_pub.
-nooutDo not output the key in encoded form.
-textOutput the various key components in plain text (possibly in addition to the PEM encoded form). This cannot be combined with encoded output in DER format.
-text_pubOutput in text form only the public key components (also for private keys). This cannot be combined with encoded output in DER format.
-ec_conv_formargThis option only applies to elliptic-curve based keys. This specifies how the points on the elliptic curve are converted into octet strings. Possible values are: compressed (the default value), uncompressed and hybrid. For more information regarding the point conversion forms please read the X9.62 standard. Note Due to patent issues the compressed option is disabled by default for binary curves and can be enabled by defining the preprocessor macro OPENSSL_EC_BIN_PT_COMP at compile time.
-ec_param_encargThis option only applies to elliptic curve based public and private keys. This specifies how the elliptic curve parameters are encoded. Possible value are: named_curve, i.e. the ec parameters are specified by an OID, or explicit where the ec parameters are explicitly given (see RFC 3279 for the definition of the EC parameters structures). The default value is named_curve. Note the implicitlyCA alternative, as specified in RFC 3279, is currently not implemented in OpenSSL.
DESCRIPTION
EXAMPLES
To remove the pass phrase on a private key:
openssl pkey -in key.pem -out keyout.pem
To encrypt a private key using triple DES:
openssl pkey -in key.pem -des3 -out keyout.pem
To convert a private key from PEM to DER format:
openssl pkey -in key.pem -outform DER -out keyout.der
To print out the components of a private key to standard output:
openssl pkey -in key.pem -text -noout
To print out the public components of a private key to standard output:
openssl pkey -in key.pem -text_pub -noout
To just output the public part of a private key:
openssl pkey -in key.pem -pubout -out pubkey.pem
To change the EC parameters encoding to explicit:
openssl pkey -in key.pem -ec_param_enc explicit -out keyout.pem
To change the EC point conversion form to compressed:
openssl pkey -in key.pem -ec_conv_form compressed -out keyout.pem
HISTORY
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2006-2023 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.