PKI Certificate in PEM Format

PKI Certificate Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟PKI Certificate File Formats

∟PKI Certificate in PEM Format

This section describes the PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) file format to store PKI certificates.

Certificates stored in Base64 file format are safe to be transmitted directly. But it not able to store multiple certificates in a single file.

So the X.509 standard recommends to wrap the Base64 encoding into the PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) format. Here is the same certificate from the previous tutorial stored in PEM format:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Here is what we should know about a certificate file in PEM format.

It is a text file with printable characters only. So it is safe to be transmitted directly.
It can store multiple certificates in a single file. Each certificate in the file is bounded by the BEGIN CERTIFICATE and END CERTIFICATE delimiter lines.
It has no password protection.
It may have a file extension of .pem, crt, or cer.
It can be converted back to the DER format using certificate decoding tools, like "openssl x509" command.

Table of Contents

About This Book

Introduction of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)

Introduction of PKI Certificate

►PKI Certificate File Formats

What Is ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One)

What Is BER (Basic Encoding Rules)

BER Encoding Examples

ASN.1 Type Modifier - Type Tagging

What Is DER (Distinguished Encoding Rules)

PKI Certificate Structure in ASN.1 Notations

PKI Certificate in DER Format

PKI Certificate in Base64 Format

►PKI Certificate in PEM Format

PKI Certificate File Viewer and Decoder

PKI Certificate File ASN.1 Parser

Certificate Wrapped in PKCS7 Formats

Certificate Wrapped in PKCS12 Formats

Certificate File Format Summary

OpenSSL - Cryptography Toolkit

"openssl ca" - CA (Certificate Authority) Tool

Java "keytool" Commands and KeyStore Files

PKI Certificate Store

PKCS12 Certificate Bundle File

PKCS7 Certificate Chain File

PKI Certificate Related Terminology

Full Version in PDF/EPUB