Parse RSA public and private key pair from string in Java

README.md

Troubleshooting

Error:

unable to write 'random state'
e is 65537 (0x10001)

solution:

sudo rm ~/.rnd

source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/94458/878361

generateKeyPair.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

openssl genrsa -out private_key.pem 4096
openssl rsa -pubout -in private_key.pem -out public_key.pem

# convert private key to pkcs8 format in order to import it from Java
openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -in private_key.pem -inform pem -out private_key_pkcs8.pem -outform pem -nocrypt

ParseRSAKeys.java

import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URISyntaxException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.security.KeyFactory;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.PrivateKey;
import java.security.interfaces.RSAPublicKey;
import java.security.spec.InvalidKeySpecException;
import java.security.spec.PKCS8EncodedKeySpec;
import java.security.spec.X509EncodedKeySpec;
import java.util.Base64;

/**
 * This file is intended to be used on a IDE for testing purposes.
 * ClassLoader.getSystemResource won't work in a JAR
 */
public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws InvalidKeySpecException, NoSuchAlgorithmException, IOException, URISyntaxException {

        String privateKeyContent = new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(ClassLoader.getSystemResource("private_key_pkcs8.pem").toURI())));
        String publicKeyContent = new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(ClassLoader.getSystemResource("public_key.pem").toURI())));

        privateKeyContent = privateKeyContent.replaceAll("\\n", "").replace("-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----", "").replace("-----END PRIVATE KEY-----", "");
        publicKeyContent = publicKeyContent.replaceAll("\\n", "").replace("-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----", "").replace("-----END PUBLIC KEY-----", "");;

        KeyFactory kf = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");

        PKCS8EncodedKeySpec keySpecPKCS8 = new PKCS8EncodedKeySpec(Base64.getDecoder().decode(privateKeyContent));
        PrivateKey privKey = kf.generatePrivate(keySpecPKCS8);

        X509EncodedKeySpec keySpecX509 = new X509EncodedKeySpec(Base64.getDecoder().decode(publicKeyContent));
        RSAPublicKey pubKey = (RSAPublicKey) kf.generatePublic(keySpecX509);

        System.out.println(privKey);
        System.out.println(pubKey);
    }
}

Thanks!

Getting NullPointerException, I have files in the root directory ??

Tesekkurler kardes!

I got this error Illegal base64 character d
Do you have an idea ?

Thanks for this! 👍

Thanks 😄

thanks man, saved my day

Thanks man, saved my day

thanks!!!

Thanks, it was helpful!

Thanks!!! ❤️

Thanks, it worked like a charm.

For those who are getting "Illegal base64 character d" error, here is the solution.

There is a regex missing in the public/privateKeyContent. Just add it at the end of the statment --> .replaceAll("\s", "")

thanks a lot! save my day!!

For @KhawanC comment on 'illegal character d', its .replaceAll("\\s", "") for ALL whitespace characters (two backward slashes)
... ahhh I see the mistake, when we type in two '\' '\' github automatically removes one before posting :)

Saved many of us. Thank you.

Rewrote the java part to a Kotlin function that returns a KeyPair:

import java.nio.file.Files
import java.security.KeyFactory
import java.security.KeyPair
import java.security.spec.PKCS8EncodedKeySpec
import java.security.spec.X509EncodedKeySpec
import java.util.*
import kotlin.io.path.Path

fun readKeyPair(
  publicKeyPath: String,
  privateKeyPath: String,
): KeyPair =
  KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA").let { keyFactory ->
    KeyPair(
      keyFactory.generatePublic(
        X509EncodedKeySpec(
          Base64.getDecoder().decode(
            String(Files.readAllBytes(Path(publicKeyPath)))
                .replace("\n", "")
                .replace("-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----", "")
                .replace("-----END PUBLIC KEY-----", "")
          )
        )
      ),
      keyFactory.generatePrivate(
        PKCS8EncodedKeySpec(
          Base64.getDecoder().decode(
            String(Files.readAllBytes(Path(privateKeyPath)))
                .replace("\n", "")
                .replace("-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----", "")
                .replace("-----END PRIVATE KEY-----", "")
          )
        )
      )
    )
  }

For anyone using java > 17, if you getting error at line 'Base64.getDecoder().decode(privateKeyContent)'. Replace it with getMimeDecoder() might work.
Base64.getMimeDecoder().decode(privateKeyContent)

Thank you! Still helpful in 2024... 😄