Visual Basic 6.0

Set the Signing Certificate and Private Key

Demonstrates the Chilkat Email.SetSigningCert2 method, which explicitly sets the certificate and its corresponding private key as separate objects for sending digitally signed email. This example loads a .cer certificate and a PEM private key, sets both, and enables signed sending.

Background: When your signing certificate and its private key are stored separately — a public .cer plus a PEM key file — rather than combined in a PFX, SetSigningCert2 accepts the two objects individually. It is the two-object counterpart to SetSigningCert, which takes a single certificate that already carries its private key.

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Visual Basic 6.0

Dim success As Long
success = 0

'  Demonstrates the SetSigningCert2 method, which explicitly sets the certificate and its
'  corresponding private key (as separate objects) for sending digitally signed email.

Dim email As New ChilkatEmail
email.Subject = "Signed email"
email.Body = "This message will be sent with a digital signature."
email.From = "alice@example.com"
success = email.AddTo("Bob","bob@example.com")

'  Load the certificate (public) and the matching private key from separate files.
Dim cert As New ChilkatCert
success = cert.LoadFromFile("qa_data/certs/signer.cer")
If (success = 0) Then
    Debug.Print cert.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

Dim privKey As New PrivateKey
success = privKey.LoadPemFile("qa_data/certs/signer_privkey.pem")
If (success = 0) Then
    Debug.Print privKey.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

'  Set the certificate and private key used to create the signature.
success = email.SetSigningCert2(cert,privKey)
If (success = 0) Then
    Debug.Print email.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

email.SendSigned = 1

Debug.Print "Signing certificate and private key set."

'  Note: Paths such as "qa_data/..." are relative local filesystem paths,
'  relative to the current working directory of the running application.