How do I use a X509 certificate with PyCrypto?

Question

I want to encrypt some data in python with PyCrypto.

However I get an error when using key = RSA.importKey(pubkey):

RSA key format is not supported

The key was generated with:

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout mycert.key -out mycert.pem

The code is:

def encrypt(data):
    pubkey = open('mycert.pem').read()
    key = RSA.importKey(pubkey)
    cipher = PKCS1_OAEP.new(key)
    return cipher.encrypt(data)

Mikesell

First response in a google search: #10569689 – Badger

@Badger doesn't work with me, I use certificate, not a public key file. – Mikesell

Answer 1

PyCrypto does not support X.509 certificates. You must first extract the public key with the command:

openssl x509 -inform pem -in mycert.pem -pubkey -noout > publickey.pem

Then, you can use RSA.importKey on publickey.pem.

---

If you don't want or cannot use openssl, you can take the PEM X.509 certificate and do it in pure Python like this:

from Crypto.Util.asn1 import DerSequence
from Crypto.PublicKey import RSA
from binascii import a2b_base64

# Convert from PEM to DER
pem = open("mycert.pem").read()
lines = pem.replace(" ",'').split()
der = a2b_base64(''.join(lines[1:-1]))

# Extract subjectPublicKeyInfo field from X.509 certificate (see RFC3280)
cert = DerSequence()
cert.decode(der)
tbsCertificate = DerSequence()
tbsCertificate.decode(cert[0])
subjectPublicKeyInfo = tbsCertificate[6]

# Initialize RSA key
rsa_key = RSA.importKey(subjectPublicKeyInfo)

Submiss

As a note, PEM->DER conversion could be done easier using builtin ssl.PEM_cert_to_DER_cert(). – Juggle

Can you explain how to crypt a string after this step? – Allyson

is it still the case in 2016 ? – Sikhism

In 2016, one can use pycryptodome, which can read in X.509 certificates directly with importKey. – Submiss

This is required for anyone verifying google oauth tokens on their own because their published public keys are x509 certs, googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/certs – Binni

Answer 2

Here's a good example: https://www.dlitz.net/software/pycrypto/api/2.6/Crypto.Cipher.PKCS1_OAEP-module.html

from Crypto.Cipher import PKCS1_OAEP
from Crypto.PublicKey import RSA

# sender side
message = 'To be encrypted'
key = RSA.importKey(open('pubkey.der').read())
cipher = PKCS1_OAEP.new(key)
ciphertext = cipher.encrypt(message)

# receiver side
key = RSA.importKey(open('privkey.der').read())
cipher = PKCS1_OAEP.new(key)
message = cipher.decrypt(ciphertext)

Diseuse