Convert pem key to ssh-rsa format

Adrya picture Adrya · Jun 18, 2009 · Viewed 200.4k times · Source

I have a certificate in der format, from it with this command I generate a public key:

openssl x509 -inform der -in ejbcacert.cer -noout -pubkey > pub1key.pub

Which results in this:

-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQC7vbqajDw4o6gJy8UtmIbkcpnk
O3Kwc4qsEnSZp/TR+fQi62F79RHWmwKOtFmwteURgLbj7D/WGuNLGOfa/2vse3G2
eHnHl5CB8ruRX9fBl/KgwCVr2JaEuUm66bBQeP5XeBotdR4cvX38uPYivCDdPjJ1
QWPdspTBKcxeFbccDwIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

How can I obtain a public key like this? Either from certificate or from this public key?

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAAAgQC7vbqajDw4o6gJy8UtmIbkcpnkO3Kwc4qsEnSZp/TR+fQi62F79RHWmwKOtFmwteURgLbj7D/WGuNLGOfa/2vse3G2eHnHl5CB8ruRX9fBl/KgwCVr2JaEuUm66bBQeP5XeBotdR4cvX38uPYivCDdPjJ1QWPdspTBKcxeFbccDw==

This was obtained with this command:

ssh-keygen -y -f private_key1.pem > public_key1.pub

Answer

Victor Mataré picture Victor Mataré · May 24, 2011

No need to compile stuff. You can do the same with ssh-keygen:

ssh-keygen -f pub1key.pub -i

will read the public key in openssl format from pub1key.pub and output it in OpenSSH format.

Note: In some cases you will need to specify the input format:

ssh-keygen -f pub1key.pub -i -mPKCS8

From the ssh-keygen docs (From man ssh-keygen):

-m key_format Specify a key format for the -i (import) or -e (export) conversion options. The supported key formats are: “RFC4716” (RFC 4716/SSH2 public or private key), “PKCS8” (PEM PKCS8 public key) or “PEM” (PEM public key). The default conversion format is “RFC4716”.