Check Certificate for Private Key

Checks to see if a certificate has its associated private key installed on the computer.

Detailed Instructions for Installing a PFX for Use by ASP / ASP.NET

Download Chilkat Ruby Library

require 'chilkat'


cert = Chilkat::CkCert.new()

#  There are many ways of loading a Chilkat certificate object:
#  1) From a Windows registry-based certificate store.
#  2) From a PFX file.
#  3) From a DER encoded .cer file.
#  4) From a PEM file.

#  The point of this example is to show how to check for the existence
#  of a usable private key.  This is done by calling the HasPrivateKey method.

#  The LoadByCommonName method searches the registry-based
#  Windows Current User Certificate Store and Local Machine Certificate
#  Store for a certificate whose common name (CN) matches
#  the argument:

success = cert.LoadByCommonName("Chilkat Software, Inc.")
if (success == false)
    print "Failed to find certificate!" + "\n"
else

    #  Display the certificate's distinguished name:
    print cert.subjectDN() + "\n";

    hasPrivKey = cert.HasPrivateKey()
    if (hasPrivKey == true)
        print "Certificate has a usable private key." + "\n";
    else
        print "Certificate does not have a private key." + "\n";
    end

    #  If HasPrivateKey returns false, it's possible that the private key
    #  does exist, but the calling process does not have permission to access it.

    #  If your program is running under IIS (perhaps in a web service), you need
    #  rights to the private key to perform a signature, and the IIS processes
    #  typically runs in the default IIS Application Pool under the
    #  NETWORK_SERVICE ID, which has no rights.

    #  Grant the ID Full Control rights to the private key which is stored in
    #  C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\Machine Keys.
    #  (Perhaps lesser rights would work; you may experiment).

end

#  Alternatively, load a Certificate from a .cer file.
#  (Certs may also be loaded from other types of files, such as PEM, DER, PFX, etc.)
success = cert.LoadFromFile("myCert.cer")
if (success == false)
    print "Failed to load certificate!" + "\n"
else

    hasPrivKey = cert.HasPrivateKey()
    if (hasPrivKey == true)
        print "Certificate has a usable private key." + "\n";
    else
        print "Certificate does not have a private key." + "\n";
    end

end