OPENSSL-PKEY(1ossl)

📦
version 3.5.9 · 8 versions
, in alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24

💅 OPENSSL-PKEY (1ossl) 💅

okay bestie, welcome to the openssl-pkey page — that's the OpenSSL manual, section 1ossl, and honestly? this one's kind of a main character. it's the public or private key processing command, and it's about to make key wrangling feel like a whole vibe. 🔑✨

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

no cap, here's the whole shape of it:

openssl pkey [-help] [-engine id] [-provider name] [-provider-path path]
[-provparam [name:]key=value] [-propquery propq] [-check] [-pubcheck]
[-in filename|uri] [-inform DER|PEM|P12|ENGINE] [-passin arg] [-pubin]
[-out filename] [-outform DER|PEM] [-cipher] [-passout arg]
[-traditional] [-pubout] [-noout] [-text] [-text_pub] [-ec_conv_form
arg] [-ec_param_enc arg]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so what does this thing do? it processes public or private keys. literally that's it, that's the job. 🫶 They can be converted between various forms and their components printed. it's giving "key glow-up station" and i'm obsessed. 💖

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

💜 General options

  • -help — prints out a usage message. the "help me help you" of it all. 🙈
  • -engine id — see "Engine Options" in openssl(1). heads up bestie: this option is deprecated. ⚠️
  • -provider name
  • -provider-path path
  • -provparam [name:]key=value
  • -propquery propq

all four of these cuties: see "Provider Options" in openssl(1), provider(7), and property(7). ✨

  • -check — this option checks the consistency of a key pair — for both the public and private components. like a vibe check but for your keys. 💅
  • -pubcheck — this one checks the correctness of either a public key or the public component of a key pair. 🔍

🦋 Input options

  • -in filename|uri — 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. (yes, it will literally ask you. out loud. 😭)

  • -inform DER|PEM|P12|ENGINE — the key input format; unspecified by default. see openssl-format-options(1) for details. 🌈
  • -passin arg — the password source for the key input. 🗝️

For more information about the format of arg, see openssl-passphrase-options(1).

  • -pubin — by default a private key is read from the input. with this option a public key is read instead. and if the input contains no public key but a private key, its public part is used. clever, right? 💫

👑 Output options

  • -out filename — specifies the output file to save the encoded and/or text output of the 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. so like… be mindful. 💀

If any cipher option is set but no -passout is given, then a pass phrase will be prompted for. and when password input is interrupted, the output file is not touched. slay for safety. 🫶

  • -outform DER|PEM — the key output format; the default is PEM. see openssl-format-options(1) for details. 💖
  • -cipher — encrypt the PEM encoded private key with the supplied cipher. any algorithm name accepted by EVP_get_cipherbyname() is acceptable, such as aes128. 🔐
heads up: Encryption is not supported for DER output. periodt.
  • -passout arg — the password source for the output file. see openssl-passphrase-options(1) for more info about the format of arg. 🎀
  • -traditional — normally a private key is written using standard format: that's PKCS#8 form with the appropriate encryption algorithm (if any). if the -traditional option is specified, then the older "traditional" format is used instead. retro but make it cryptography. 🕰️
  • -pubout — by 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.

  • -noout — do not output the key in encoded form. that's it. nothing encoded, no notes. 🤐
  • -text — output 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_pub — output in text form only the public key components (also for private keys). 💫
this cannot be combined with encoded output in DER format.
  • -ec_conv_form arg — this option only applies to elliptic-curve based keys. 🧚

it 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. ikr. patents. 😭
  • -ec_param_enc arg — this option only applies to elliptic curve based public and private keys. 🦋

it specifies how the elliptic curve parameters are encoded. possible values 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.

🔥 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

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

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

⭐ HISTORY ⭐

the -engine option was deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0. we don't stan her anymore. 💀

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>.

🎀 and that's the whole page bestie — this was OPENSSL-PKEY(1ossl) from OpenSSL 3.5.9, dated 2026-09-29. go forth and process those keys, you icon. 👑🦋💅

📦 where this page comes from