What does "SSL_CTX_use_PrivateKey_file" "problems getting password error" indicate in Nginx error log?

ssl https nginx openssl private-key
Alex D picture Alex D · Feb 21, 2012 · Viewed 60.6k times · Source

I'm trying to set up SSL on Nginx. It doesn't work, and I am getting the following error in the error log, which is getting passed up from the OpenSSL library which nginx was compiled with. I don't know what that library is, but it's version 0.8.54 of nginx, and I installed it using apt-get on Ubuntu Linux.

2012/02/21 07:06:33 [emerg] 4071#0: 
SSL_CTX_use_PrivateKey_file("/exequias/certs/exequias.com.key") failed (SSL: 
error:0906406D:PEM routines:PEM_def_callback:problems getting password error:
0906A068:PEM routines:PEM_do_header:bad password read error:140B0009:SSL routines:
SSL_CTX_use_PrivateKey_file:PEM lib)

I have ensured that the file permissions on the private key file are not stopping nginx from reading it. It is an RSA private key, generated with openssl rsa.

Any ideas what might be causing this?

Answer

Ravindranath Akila picture Ravindranath Akila · Aug 23, 2013

Remove the key pass phrase:

openssl rsa -in key.pem -out newkey.pem

If they certificate and key are together:

openssl rsa -in mycert.pem -out newcert.pem
openssl x509 -in mycert.pem >>newcert.pem

Source: http://www.madboa.com/geek/openssl/#key-removepass

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