How to Read PEM Encoded RSA Private Keys in Java Without Bouncycastle?

Reading PEM Encoded RSA Private Key (Not Using Bouncycastle)

Most Java solutions for reading a private key from a PEM file rely on the Bouncycastle provider, which may not be acceptable in some environments. This article presents an alternative method that utilizes only the Java Cryptographic Extensions (JCE) and sun.security for DER parsing.

Code Sample

Below is a code snippet that supports both PKCS#8 and PKCS#1 formats of private keys in PEM files:

import sun.security.util.DerInputStream;
import sun.security.util.DerValue;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.math.BigInteger;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.security.GeneralSecurityException;
import java.security.KeyFactory;
import java.security.PrivateKey;
import java.security.spec.PKCS8EncodedKeySpec;
import java.security.spec.RSAPrivateCrtKeySpec;
import java.util.Base64;

public static PrivateKey pemFileLoadPrivateKeyPkcs1OrPkcs8Encoded(File pemFileName) throws GeneralSecurityException, IOException {
    // PKCS#8 format
    final String PEM_PRIVATE_START = "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----";
    final String PEM_PRIVATE_END = "-----END PRIVATE KEY-----";

    // PKCS#1 format
    final String PEM_RSA_PRIVATE_START = "-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----";
    final String PEM_RSA_PRIVATE_END = "-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----";

    Path path = Paths.get(pemFileName.getAbsolutePath());

    String privateKeyPem = new String(Files.readAllBytes(path));

    if (privateKeyPem.indexOf(PEM_PRIVATE_START) != -1) { // PKCS#8 format
        privateKeyPem = privateKeyPem.replace(PEM_PRIVATE_START, "").replace(PEM_PRIVATE_END, "");
        privateKeyPem = privateKeyPem.replaceAll("\s", "");

        byte[] pkcs8EncodedKey = Base64.getDecoder().decode(privateKeyPem);

        KeyFactory factory = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");
        return factory.generatePrivate(new PKCS8EncodedKeySpec(pkcs8EncodedKey));

    } else if (privateKeyPem.indexOf(PEM_RSA_PRIVATE_START) != -1) {  // PKCS#1 format

        privateKeyPem = privateKeyPem.replace(PEM_RSA_PRIVATE_START, "").replace(PEM_RSA_PRIVATE_END, "");
        privateKeyPem = privateKeyPem.replaceAll("\s", "");

        DerInputStream derReader = new DerInputStream(Base64.getDecoder().decode(privateKeyPem));

        DerValue[] seq = derReader.getSequence(0);

        if (seq.length <h3 id="Usage">Usage</h3><p>To use this code, simply pass the path to the PEM file containing the private key as an argument to the pemFileLoadPrivateKeyPkcs1OrPkcs8Encoded method. The method will return an instance of the PrivateKey class, which can then be used for decryption or any other appropriate purpose.</p>

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