How to read .pem file to get private and public key

Question

I am writing a small piece of code which reads public and private key stored in .pem file. I am using the following commands to generate the keys.

Below command to generate pair of key.

   $openssl genrsa -out mykey.pem 2048

This command to generate the private key

$openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -inform PEM -outform PEM -in mykey.pem \
    -out private_key.pem -nocrypt

and this command to get the public key.

$ openssl rsa -in mykey.pem -pubout -outform DER -out public_key.der

I have written two methods which reads the private key and public key respectively.

   public  PrivateKey getPemPrivateKey(String filename, String algorithm) throws Exception {
      File f = new File(filename);
      FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(f);
      DataInputStream dis = new DataInputStream(fis);
      byte[] keyBytes = new byte[(int) f.length()];
      dis.readFully(keyBytes);
      dis.close();

      String temp = new String(keyBytes);
      String privKeyPEM = temp.replace("-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\n", "");
      privKeyPEM = privKeyPEM.replace("-----END PRIVATE KEY-----", "");
      //System.out.println("Private key\n"+privKeyPEM);

      Base64 b64 = new Base64();
      byte [] decoded = b64.decode(privKeyPEM);

      PKCS8EncodedKeySpec spec = new PKCS8EncodedKeySpec(decoded);
      KeyFactory kf = KeyFactory.getInstance(algorithm);
      return kf.generatePrivate(spec);
      }

   public  PublicKey getPemPublicKey(String filename, String algorithm) throws Exception {
      File f = new File(filename);
      FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(f);
      DataInputStream dis = new DataInputStream(fis);
      byte[] keyBytes = new byte[(int) f.length()];
      dis.readFully(keyBytes);
      dis.close();

      String temp = new String(keyBytes);
      String publicKeyPEM = temp.replace("-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\n", "");
      publicKeyPEM = publicKeyPEM.replace("-----END PUBLIC KEY-----", "");


      Base64 b64 = new Base64();
      byte [] decoded = b64.decode(publicKeyPEM);

      X509EncodedKeySpec spec =
            new X509EncodedKeySpec(decoded);
      KeyFactory kf = KeyFactory.getInstance(algorithm);
      return kf.generatePublic(spec);
      }

I feel like this is a naive way of doing it. I couldn't get any better way of doing it over internet. Can anyone suggest me what is the best way of writing the same code to handle the generic cases. I don' want to use any kind of third party library.
I have very basic knowledge of singing/encrypting and hardly use any java security APIs. So if I am not making sense somewhere then please point out.

Answer 1

Try this class.

package groovy;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.security.GeneralSecurityException;
import java.security.InvalidKeyException;
import java.security.KeyFactory;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.PrivateKey;
import java.security.PublicKey;
import java.security.Signature;
import java.security.SignatureException;
import java.security.interfaces.RSAPrivateKey;
import java.security.interfaces.RSAPublicKey;
import java.security.spec.PKCS8EncodedKeySpec;
import java.security.spec.X509EncodedKeySpec;

import javax.crypto.Cipher;

import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;

public class RSA {

private static String getKey(String filename) throws IOException {
    // Read key from file
    String strKeyPEM = "";
    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(filename));
    String line;
    while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
        strKeyPEM += line + "\n";
    }
    br.close();
    return strKeyPEM;
}
public static RSAPrivateKey getPrivateKey(String filename) throws IOException, GeneralSecurityException {
    String privateKeyPEM = getKey(filename);
    return getPrivateKeyFromString(privateKeyPEM);
}

public static RSAPrivateKey getPrivateKeyFromString(String key) throws IOException, GeneralSecurityException {
    String privateKeyPEM = key;
    privateKeyPEM = privateKeyPEM.replace("-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\n", "");
    privateKeyPEM = privateKeyPEM.replace("-----END PRIVATE KEY-----", "");
    byte[] encoded = Base64.decodeBase64(privateKeyPEM);
    KeyFactory kf = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");
    PKCS8EncodedKeySpec keySpec = new PKCS8EncodedKeySpec(encoded);
    RSAPrivateKey privKey = (RSAPrivateKey) kf.generatePrivate(keySpec);
    return privKey;
}


public static RSAPublicKey getPublicKey(String filename) throws IOException, GeneralSecurityException {
    String publicKeyPEM = getKey(filename);
    return getPublicKeyFromString(publicKeyPEM);
}

public static RSAPublicKey getPublicKeyFromString(String key) throws IOException, GeneralSecurityException {
    String publicKeyPEM = key;
    publicKeyPEM = publicKeyPEM.replace("-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\n", "");
    publicKeyPEM = publicKeyPEM.replace("-----END PUBLIC KEY-----", "");
    byte[] encoded = Base64.decodeBase64(publicKeyPEM);
    KeyFactory kf = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");
    RSAPublicKey pubKey = (RSAPublicKey) kf.generatePublic(new X509EncodedKeySpec(encoded));
    return pubKey;
}

public static String sign(PrivateKey privateKey, String message) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, InvalidKeyException, SignatureException, UnsupportedEncodingException {
    Signature sign = Signature.getInstance("SHA1withRSA");
    sign.initSign(privateKey);
    sign.update(message.getBytes("UTF-8"));
    return new String(Base64.encodeBase64(sign.sign()), "UTF-8");
}


public static boolean verify(PublicKey publicKey, String message, String signature) throws SignatureException, NoSuchAlgorithmException, UnsupportedEncodingException, InvalidKeyException {
    Signature sign = Signature.getInstance("SHA1withRSA");
    sign.initVerify(publicKey);
    sign.update(message.getBytes("UTF-8"));
    return sign.verify(Base64.decodeBase64(signature.getBytes("UTF-8")));
}

public static String encrypt(String rawText, PublicKey publicKey) throws IOException, GeneralSecurityException {
    Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("RSA");
    cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, publicKey);
    return Base64.encodeBase64String(cipher.doFinal(rawText.getBytes("UTF-8")));
}

public static String decrypt(String cipherText, PrivateKey privateKey) throws IOException, GeneralSecurityException {
    Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("RSA");
    cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, privateKey);
    return new String(cipher.doFinal(Base64.decodeBase64(cipherText)), "UTF-8");
}
}


Required jar library "common-codec-1.6"