Delphi ActiveX

Export an Encrypted PKCS #8 Private Key as Encoded Text

Demonstrates the Chilkat PrivateKey.GetPkcs8EncryptedENC method, which exports the key as password-protected PKCS #8 DER and encodes the encrypted DER as text. The first argument names the binary encoding and the second is the password. The cipher is selected by Pkcs8EncryptAlg.

Note: The file paths are relative to the application's current working directory. Absolute paths may also be used. Supply the paths appropriate to your own environment.

Background: This combines encryption with text encoding: the key is protected by a passphrase and returned as a string, ideal for storing an encrypted key in a text-only medium such as JSON or an environment variable. It is the encrypted counterpart to GetPkcs8ENC. Source the password securely.

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var
success: Integer;
privKey: TPrivateKey;
password: WideString;
encoded: WideString;

begin
success := 0;

//  Load a private key to export.
privKey := TPrivateKey.Create(Self);
success := privKey.LoadPemFile('qa_data/private.pem');
if (success = 0) then
  begin
    Memo1.Lines.Add(privKey.LastErrorText);
    Exit;
  end;

//  The key password is not hard-coded in a real application; obtain it from an interactive
//  prompt, environment variable, or a secrets vault.
password := 'myKeyPassword';

//  Export as password-protected PKCS #8 DER, then encode the encrypted DER as text.  The 1st
//  argument names the binary encoding and the 2nd is the password.  The cipher is selected by the
//  Pkcs8EncryptAlg property.
encoded := privKey.GetPkcs8EncryptedENC('base64',password);
if (privKey.LastMethodSuccess = 0) then
  begin
    Memo1.Lines.Add(privKey.LastErrorText);
    Exit;
  end;
Memo1.Lines.Add(encoded);