Passing public key in PEM format to openssl_pkey_get_public gives error:0906D06C:PEM routines:PEM_read_bio:no start line

Question

The following public RSA key in PEM format was provided to openssl_pkey_get_public.

However, the method call fails, returning false, with the error string error:0906D06C:PEM routines:PEM_read_bio:no start line

Is the public key invalid? For the record, my code is starting with a public key modulus and exponent and converting it to PEM format using the algorithm posted here .

Here's the full script:

<?php

function createPemFromModulusAndExponent($n, $e)
{
    $modulus = urlsafeB64Decode($n);
    $publicExponent = urlsafeB64Decode($e);
    $components = array(
        'modulus' => pack('Ca*a*', 2, encodeLength(strlen($modulus)), $modulus),
        'publicExponent' => pack('Ca*a*', 2, encodeLength(strlen($publicExponent)), $publicExponent)
    );

    $RSAPublicKey = pack('Ca*a*a*', 48, encodeLength(strlen($components['modulus']) + strlen($components['publicExponent'])), $components['modulus'], $components['publicExponent']);

    $rsaOID = pack('H*', '300d06092a864886f70d0101010500');
    $RSAPublicKey = chr(0) . $RSAPublicKey;
    $RSAPublicKey = chr(3) . encodeLength(strlen($RSAPublicKey)) . $RSAPublicKey;
    $RSAPublicKey = pack('Ca*a*', 48, encodeLength(strlen($rsaOID . $RSAPublicKey)), $rsaOID . $RSAPublicKey);

    $RSAPublicKey = "-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----" . chunk_split(base64_encode($RSAPublicKey), 64) . '-----END PUBLIC KEY-----';
    return $RSAPublicKey;
}

function urlsafeB64Decode($input)
{
    $remainder = strlen($input) % 4;
    if ($remainder)
    {
        $padlen = 4 - $remainder;
        $input .= str_repeat('=', $padlen);
    }
    return base64_decode(strtr($input, '-_', '+/'));
}

function encodeLength($length)
{
    if ($length <= 0x7F)
    {
        return chr($length);
    }

    $temp = ltrim(pack('N', $length), chr(0));
    return pack('Ca*', 0x80 | strlen($temp), $temp);
}

$key = createPemFromModulusAndExponent('iGaLqP6y-SJCCBq5Hv6pGDbG_SQ11MNjH7rWHcCFYz4hGwHC4lcSurTlV8u3avoVNM8jXevG1Iu1SY11qInqUvjJur--hghr1b56OPJu6H1iKulSxGjEIyDP6c5BdE1uwprYyr4IO9th8fOwCPygjLFrh44XEGbDIFeImwvBAGOhmMB2AD1n1KviyNsH0bEB7phQtiLk-ILjv1bORSRl8AK677-1T8isGfHKXGZ_ZGtStDe7Lu0Ihp8zoUt59kx2o9uWpROkzF56ypresiIl4WprClRCjz8x6cPZXU2qNWhu71TQvUFwvIvbkE1oYaJMb0jcOTmBRZA2QuYw-zHLwQ', 'AQAB');

print_r($key);

print_r(openssl_pkey_get_public($key));

print_r(openssl_error_string());

Answer 1

First: openssl_pkey_get_public is intended to either load the public key directly or extract it from a certificate, as described in the documentation of the certificate parameter of openssl_pkey_get_public .

There has already been a bug filed for this issue, #75643 from Dec 2017 (version 7.1.12), which has the status No Feedback and is currently suspended (note that #75643 actually refers to openssl_public_encrypt , which however uses the same logic regarding the key as openssl_pkey_get_public , here ):

The error in the queue is expected. If you supply string as a PEM (string not prefixed by "file://" which would be a file path), then certificate is tried first (using PEM_ASN1_read_bio). It means that it fails and the error is saved to the queue. However this queue is just a copy of the OpenSSL which is emptied. After that the key is loaded using PEM_read_bio_PUBKEY which is successful in your case so you get back the result. To sum it up openssl_error_string does not mean that the operation failed but just that some error was emitted...

According to this, the error message is caused by the failure to extract the key from the certificate. However, processing is continued and the key is loaded directly. In other words, the error message occurs as expected when loading the key directly and can be ignored in this context (at least if the direct loading is successful).

For the records: As of 7.2(.17), a slightly different error message is displayed: error:0909006C:PEM routines:get_name:no start line .

Update:

As @President James Moveon Polk noted in his comment, createPemFromModulusAndExponent doesn't generate the key correctly. If the first / most significant byte is greater than 0x7F , the modulus must be preceded by a 0x00 byte, which does currently not happen. Eg in the posted code the modulus starts (Base64url decoded) with 0x88 , which means that the generated (= the posted) key is invalid. If a 0x00 is prepended manually and the so corrected value is (Base64url encoded) passed to createPemFromModulusAndExponent , the following, now valid key results:

Of course it would be better if createPemFromModulusAndExponent would do this correction automatically. @President James Moveon Polk has filed an issue for this, here .

Answer 2

Allow me to propose an alternative way that's quite a bit simpler and more succinct. Using phpseclib,

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

use phpseclib\Math\BigInteger;
use phpseclib\Crypt\RSA;

$rsa = new RSA;
$rsa->loadKey([
    'e' => new BigInteger(base64_decode('AQAB'), 256),
    'n' => new BigInteger(base64_decode('iGaLqP6y-SJCCBq5Hv6pGDbG_SQ11MNjH7rWHcCFYz4hGwHC4lcSurTlV8u3avoVNM8jXevG1Iu1SY11qInqUvjJur--hghr1b56OPJu6H1iKulSxGjEIyDP6c5BdE1uwprYyr4IO9th8fOwCPygjLFrh44XEGbDIFeImwvBAGOhmMB2AD1n1KviyNsH0bEB7phQtiLk-ILjv1bORSRl8AK677-1T8isGfHKXGZ_ZGtStDe7Lu0Ihp8zoUt59kx2o9uWpROkzF56ypresiIl4WprClRCjz8x6cPZXU2qNWhu71TQvUFwvIvbkE1oYaJMb0jcOTmBRZA2QuYw-zHLwQ'), 256)
]);

print_r(openssl_pkey_get_public($rsa));

The code you're using is, in fact, using code that was lifted from phpseclib 2.0. See https://github.com/dragosgaftoneanu/okta-simple-jwt-verifier/issues/1#issuecomment-612503921 for more info.

Passing public key in PEM format to openssl_pkey_get_public gives error:0906D06C:PEM routines:PEM_read_bio:no start line

Question

2 answers

solution1
2 ACCPTED 2020-04-05 11:22:27

solution2
0 2020-04-11 20:23:39

Passing public key in PEM format to openssl_pkey_get_public gives error:0906D06C:PEM routines:PEM_read_bio:no start line

Question

2 answers

solution1 2 ACCPTED 2020-04-05 11:22:27

solution2 0 2020-04-11 20:23:39

solution1
2 ACCPTED 2020-04-05 11:22:27

solution2
0 2020-04-11 20:23:39