OSSL_STORE-FILE(7ossl)

📦
version 15.1 · 3 versions
, in freebsd 15.1

💾 OSSL_STORE-FILE 💾

okay bestie, welcome to the ossl_store-file page from the OpenSSL 7ossl manual set — this is the store 'file' scheme loader, and she's lowkey iconic 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <openssl/store.h>

that's it. that's the whole include. slay 🎀

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so first thing: support for the 'file' scheme is built right into "libcrypto". no extra lib, no cap 💖

and here's the thing — files come in all kinds of formats and content types (it's giving chaos, honestly), so the 'file' scheme has its own little layer of functionality called "file handlers". their whole job? trying to decode the diverse types of file contents. they're the main characters of this operation 👑

✨ here's how the dispatch works, bestie:
  • if the file is PEM-formatted — every file handler that gets called receives the PEM name (that's everything following any "-----BEGIN ") plus any possible PEM headers, together with the decoded PEM body. and because PEM-formatted files can legitimately contain more than one object, the file handlers get called upon for each such object. one by one, no skipping 🦋
  • if the file is not determined to be PEM — the content is loaded in raw form, in its entirety, and passed to the available file handlers exactly as-is, with no PEM name and no headers. raw. unfiltered. 🫶

each file handler is expected to handle PEM and non-PEM content as appropriate. some of them may flat-out refuse non-PEM content for the sake of determinism — and honestly? valid. for example, there are keys out in the wild that are represented as an ASN.1 OCTET STRING. in raw form, it's not easily possible to distinguish those from any other data coming as an ASN.1 OCTET STRING (like... they're literally twins 😭), so such keys would naturally be accepted as PEM files only. iykyk.

🎀 NOTES 🎀

when it's needed, the 'file' scheme loader will require a pass phrase by using the UI_METHOD that was passed via OSSL_STORE_open(). 💅

⚠️ this pass phrase is expected to be UTF-8 encoded — anything else will give an undefined result. not "kinda weird result", not "a warning", undefined. don't test it, bestie 🙈

the files made accessible through this loader are expected to be standard compliant with regards to pass phrase encoding. files that aren't should be re-generated with a correctly encoded pass phrase (yes, that means going back and redoing it properly, no shortcuts 🍓). see passphrase-encoding(7) for more info — she explains it better than i ever could 💜

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

Copyright 2018 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 — no notes, ate and left no crumbs 🌈 okay bye, this was OpenSSL 3.5.6, dated 2026-04-07, signing off from the OSSL_STORE-FILE(7ossl) manual 💖✨🎀

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