"keytool" Exporting Certificates in DER and PEM

This section provides a tutorial example on how to export certificates in DER and PEM format using the 'keytool -exportcert' command.

My first test was about "keytool" exporting certificates in DER and PEM formats. This was done as:

The test session was recorded below:

herong> keytool -genkeypair -keysize 1024 -alias herong_key \
   -keypass keypass -keystore herong.jks -storepass jkspass

What is your first and last name?
  [Unknown]:  Herong Yang
What is the name of your organizational unit?
  [Unknown]:  Herong Unit
What is the name of your organization?
  [Unknown]:  Herong Company
What is the name of your City or Locality?
  [Unknown]:  Herong City
What is the name of your State or Province?
  [Unknown]:  Herong State
What is the two-letter country code for this unit?
  [Unknown]:  CA
Is CN=Herong Yang, OU=Herong Unit, O=Herong Company, L=Herong City,
ST=Herong State, C=CA correct?
  [no]:  yes

herong> keytool -exportcert -alias herong_key -keypass keypass \
   -keystore herong.jks -storepass jkspass -file keytool_crt.der

Certificate stored in file <keytool_crt.der>

herong> keytool -exportcert -alias herong_key -keypass keypass \
   -keystore herong.jks -storepass jkspass -rfc -file keytool_crt.pem

Certificate stored in file <keytool_crt.pem>

Note that "keytool -exportcert" command uses DER format by default. The "-rfc" option is to change it to PEM (RFC 1421) format.

Now I got one certificate generated by "keytool" and stored in two encoding files: keytool_crt.der and keytool_crt.pem. How can I verify that they are really using DER and PEM formats? I used "OpenSSL" to try to view them as described in the next section.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Cryptography Terminology

 Cryptography Basic Concepts

 Introduction to AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)

 Introduction to DES Algorithm

 DES Algorithm - Illustrated with Java Programs

 DES Algorithm Java Implementation

 DES Algorithm - Java Implementation in JDK JCE

 DES Encryption Operation Modes

 DES in Stream Cipher Modes

 PHP Implementation of DES - mcrypt

 Blowfish - 8-Byte Block Cipher

 Secret Key Generation and Management

 Cipher - Secret Key Encryption and Decryption

 Introduction of RSA Algorithm

 RSA Implementation using java.math.BigInteger Class

 Introduction of DSA (Digital Signature Algorithm)

 Java Default Implementation of DSA

 Private key and Public Key Pair Generation

 PKCS#8/X.509 Private/Public Encoding Standards

 Cipher - Public Key Encryption and Decryption

 MD5 Mesasge Digest Algorithm

 SHA1 Mesasge Digest Algorithm

 OpenSSL Introduction and Installation

 OpenSSL Generating and Managing RSA Keys

 OpenSSL Managing Certificates

 OpenSSL Generating and Signing CSR

 OpenSSL Validating Certificate Path

 "keytool" and "keystore" from JDK

 "OpenSSL" Signing CSR Generated by "keytool"

 Migrating Keys from "keystore" to "OpenSSL" Key Files

Certificate X.509 Standard and DER/PEM Formats

 X.509 Certificate Standard

 What Is DER (Distinguished Encoding Rules) Encoding?

 What Is PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) Encoding?

 Certificate in PEM Format

"keytool" Exporting Certificates in DER and PEM

 "OpenSSL" Viewing Certificates in DER and PEM

 "OpenSSL" Generating Certificates in DER and PEM

 "keytool" Viewing Certificates in DER and PEM

 "keytool" Importing Certificates in DER and PEM

 Migrating Keys from "OpenSSL" Key Files to "keystore"

 Using Certificates in IE

 Using Certificates in Google Chrome

 Using Certificates in Firefox

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB