PKCS12_PARSE(3ossl)

📦
version 15.1 · 3 versions
, in freebsd 15.1

💖 PKCS12_PARSE 💖 (that's PKCS12_parse, from the OpenSSL manual, section 3ossl)

okay so bestie, buckle up, because we're parsing a whole PKCS#12 structure today and it's honestly giving little-black-dress-of-crypto-files energy 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

PKCS12_parse — parse a PKCS#12 structure 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <openssl/pkcs12.h>

int PKCS12_parse(PKCS12 *p12, const char *pass, EVP_PKEY **pkey, X509 **cert,
                 STACK_OF(X509) **ca);

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so PKCS12_parse() literally parses a PKCS12 structure. that's the whole vibe ✨

p12 is the PKCS12 structure you're parsing, and pass is the passphrase you're using to get in 🔑

if it works out, the private key gets written to *pkey, the matching certificate goes to *cert, and any extra certificates land in *ca. it's giving gift bag 🎁

👑 NOTES 👑 (the important little details, iykyk)

any of the parameters pkey, cert, and ca can be NULL — and if you do that, the private key, the corresponding certificate, or the additional certificates (respectively) just get discarded. bye bestie 👋

if any of pkey and cert is non-NULL, the variable it points to is initialized. ✨

if ca is non-NULL and *ca is NULL, a new STACK gets allocated. and if ca is non-NULL and *ca is a valid STACK, then the additional certificates get appended in the given order to *ca — order preserved, no cap 🧚

the friendlyName and localKeyID attributes (if present) on each certificate will be stored in the alias and keyid attributes of the X509 structure. cute little name tags fr 💖

now this part matters: the parameter pass is interpreted as a string in the UTF-8 encoding. if it's not valid UTF-8, then it's assumed to be ISO8859-1 instead. 🫶

which, in particular, means that passwords in the locale character set (or code page on Windows) must potentially be converted to UTF-8 before use 😭 that may include passwords from local text files, or input from the terminal or command line. refer to the documentation of UI_OpenSSL(3), for example.

💀 real talk: if your password came from a file, a terminal, or a command line somewhere, check the encoding before you come crying to me. no cap.

🌈 RETURN VALUES 🌈

PKCS12_parse() returns 1 for success and zero if an error occurred. slay or don't slay, there is no in between 💅

the error can be obtained from ERR_get_error(3) 🔍

💀 BUGS 💀 (we love transparency)

  • only a single private key and corresponding certificate is returned by this function. more complex PKCS#12 files with multiple private keys will only return the first match. 🙈
  • only friendlyName and localKeyID attributes are currently stored in certificates. other attributes are discarded. 🗑️
  • attributes currently cannot be stored in the private key EVP_PKEY structure. not me crying about it 😭

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

go read them, bestie, they're iconic 👑

Copyright 2002-2020 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, diva 💜 this was OpenSSL 3.5.6, dated 2026-04-07 — go forth and parse, and remember: UTF-8 or it's ISO8859-1, periodt. 🫶✨

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