OPENSSL-PKEYPARAM(1ossl)

📦
version 15.1 · 2 versions
, in freebsd 15.1

💖 OPENSSL-PKEYPARAM 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to openssl-pkeyparam (that's the 1ossl manual, hi 👋) — the public key algorithm parameter processing command. like, it handles the parameters that public key algorithms live on. you can check them for correctness and print their components out. that's the whole gig, and it does it beautifully ✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

openssl pkeyparam [-help] [-in filename] [-out filename] [-text]
[-noout] [-check] [-engine id] [-provider name] [-provider-path path]
[-provparam [name:]key=value] [-propquery propq]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so this command processes public key algorithm parameters. that's it, that's the vibe 🫶

what can you actually do with it? two (2) iconic things:

  • check them for correctness ✅
  • print their components out 📝

both. no cap. it's giving "small tool, big main character energy" 👑

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -help — prints a usage message. literally just tells you how to use it. we love a self-aware icon 💅
  • -in filename — names the input file to read params from. don't specify it? it reads from standard input instead 🍓
  • -out filename — names the file to write params to. skip it and it goes to standard output. ⚠️ and heads up: the output filename can be the same as the input filename, which replaces the file contents — but note that file I/O is not atomic. the output file gets truncated and then written, so if something goes sideways mid-write… yeah 😭
  • -text — prints the parameters in plain text, in addition to the encoded version. both, bestie, you get both 🌈
  • -noout — do NOT output the encoded version of the parameters. like, skip that part 🙈
  • -check — checks the correctness of the parameters. the vibe check, but for params 🧚
  • -engine id — see "Engine Options" in openssl(1). ⚠️ this option is deprecated (more on that in HISTORY) 💀
  • -provider name
  • -provider-path path
  • -provparam [name:]key=value
  • -propquery propq — all four of these are the provider squad 🫶 see "Provider Options" in openssl(1), plus provider(7) and property(7)

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

print out the text version of parameters:

openssl pkeyparam -in param.pem -text

that's it. that's the example. and it ate 💅

👑 NOTES 👑

there are no -inform or -outform options for this command. why? because only PEM format is supported — the key type is determined by the PEM headers. so the format option would be doing absolutely nothing, and we don't do pointless options here 🚫✨

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

openssl(1), openssl-genpkey(1), openssl-rsa(1), openssl-pkcs8(1), openssl-dsa(1), openssl-genrsa(1), openssl-gendsa(1)

go read them. iykyk 📚

💜 HISTORY 💜

the -engine option was deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0. rip bozo, you had a good run 🕯️

Copyright 2006-2021 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>.

and that's the page, bestie!! 💖✨🎀🦋🌸 this was OpenSSL 3.5.6, dated 2026-04-07 — til next time, stay encrypted, stay iconic, mwah 😭💅👑

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