CkPython

Export a PKCS #8 Private Key as Encoded Text

Demonstrates the Chilkat PrivateKey.GetPkcs8ENC method, which exports the key as unencrypted PKCS #8 DER and encodes the DER bytes as text. The only argument names the binary encoding, such as base64 or hex.

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: DER is the compact binary form of a key; this method hands it back as encoded text so it can travel through channels that expect a string — a JSON field, a database column, a config value. It is the string-returning alternative to writing raw DER bytes, and choosing base64 versus hex is just a matter of what the consumer expects. The DER itself is unencrypted, so the encoded text is still sensitive.

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import sys
import chilkat

success = False

#  Load a private key to export.
privKey = chilkat.CkPrivateKey()
success = privKey.LoadPemFile("qa_data/private.pem")
if (success == False):
    print(privKey.lastErrorText())
    sys.exit()

#  Export as unencrypted PKCS #8 DER, then encode the DER bytes as text.  The only argument names
#  the binary encoding, such as "base64" or "hex".
encoded = privKey.getPkcs8ENC("base64")
if (privKey.get_LastMethodSuccess() == False):
    print(privKey.lastErrorText())
    sys.exit()

print(encoded)