Private Key Ssl

Private Key Ssl

Email, Client, and Document Signing Certificates

SSL Support Team

October 20, 2015

SSL is an example of asymmetric encryption , and uses some very cool math tricks to make it easy to use your key pair together for security purposes but practically impossible for anyone else to break your encryption knowing the public key alone.

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The SSL/TLS protocol uses a pair of keys – one private, one public – to authenticate, secure and manage secure connections. These keys are a linked pair of text files and are created together as a pair when you create your Certificate Signing Request (CSR).
SSL works by making one key of the pair (the public key ) known to the outside world, while the other (the private key ) remains a secret only you know.
The private key is used to digitally sign your Certificate Signing Request (CSR), and later to secure and verify connections to your server.
Your private key should be closely guarded, since anyone with access to it can readily break your encryption. (Note again that the private key is just a text file – however, it’s a really important text file and should be protected accordingly.)
If you lose your private key, or believe it was compromised in any way, SSL.com recommends “re-keying” your certificate. To rekey, you’ll create and submit a new CSR, and SSL.com will reissue your certificate using your new key pair. SSL.com offers this as a free service for the lifetime of your certificate – for more information, see this article on how to handle a lost or compromised private key .
The public key, by contrast, is distributed as widely as possible – it’s included as part of your SSL certificate, and works together with your private key to make sure that your data is encrypted, verified and not tampered with during transport.
Anyone with access to your public key can verify that your message is authentic without having to know your secret private key.
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SSL Certificate Support

SSL Basics

All About Private Keys

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Generating a Private Key How does a Private Key work with SSL? How does a Private Key work for Code Signing?

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Your private key is the single most important component of your SSL certificate. It’s what gives you the power to authenticate your website to internet users, helps to enable encryption and prevents others from impersonating you.
You’re going to hear the term “private key” tossed around a lot when it comes to SSL certificates. But if you take one thing from this article, it’s this: avoid letting your private key become compromised above all else. If you lose or have your key compromised, it will end up costing you. At best, you’ll have to spend time re-issuing your SSL certificate and installing it again. At worst, someone could impersonate your website and cost you money.
Your private key will be generated alongside your CSR as a “Key Pair .” Depending on where you’re performing the generation process, you may need to paste the output into a text editor and name the file. Then you will upload it to your server. Make sure that you have security in place where you’re storing it. Best practice for security is to save it on an external hardware token and put it in a safeguarded storage unit.
Did You Know: Your public key is actually generated off of your private key?
Note : At no point in the SSL process does The SSL Store or the Certificate Authority have your private key. It should be saved safely on the server you generated it on. Do not send your private key to anyone, as that can compromise the security of your certificate. If you lose your private key, you will be unable to install your SSL certificate and will need to generate a new key pair (CSR + Private Key) and re-issue the certificate. You can find instructions on how to re-issue your certificate here .
What happens if my Private Key is compromised?
If it’s compromised, but not misused, you’ll have to replace your SSL certificate. Most Certificate Authorities will do this for free, but it still takes time and effort. If your private key is misused, someone can spoof your website and phish your customers with impunity. You’ll have to contact your CA to get the certificate revoked and then replace it.
During the handshake process, the private key and its public counterpart are used for authentication. A user’s web browser will use the public key to decrypt the digital signature left by the private key. If it’s readable, the signature is authenticated and secure connection can be negotiated.
Similar to SSL, the private key is used to apply the digital signature to the software, when someone downloads it, their browser uses the public key to decrypt the signature and authenticate the publisher.
If you have any questions, or need help with any part of the SSL process, you can reach out to our support team 24/7/365 .

How can I find my certificate’s Private Key?

July 9, 2019

CSR and certificate installation related questions

You’ve received your SSL Certificate , and now you need to install it.
Firstly, let’s go through some basics. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) security is about using two unique keys: the Public Key is encrypted within your SSL Certificate, while the Private Key is generated on your server and kept secret.
All the information sent from a browser to a website server is encrypted with the Public Key and gets decrypted on the server-side with the Private Key. Together the key pair keeps communication secured, and one key will not work without the other.
The Private Key is generated with your Certificate Signing Request (CSR). The CSR is submitted to the Certificate Authority right after you activate your Certificate. The Private Key must be kept safe and secret on your server or device because later you’ll need it for Certificate installation.
Yes. You can generate a new Private Key and CSR , or use the automatic CSR and key generation during Certificate reissue (this option is available for all Certificates except for the Multi-Domains).
It looks like a block of encoded data, starting and ending with headers, such as —–BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY—– and —–END RSA PRIVATE KEY—–.
You may not get to see this code when generating your CSR . Usually, it gets generated in the background with the CSR and is automatically saved on your server. The system also fills the corresponding field automatically during the installation of your Certificate in some control panels, such as cPanel.
The way this works varies depending on your web server, control panel, or any other tools used for CSR generation. Select the one that applies to you in the following section for specific guidance.
Generating the Private Key in your browser is an option for all SSL certificates except for multi-domain certificates . If you have a multi-domain SSL, you should have generated the CSR on your server, so skip to the section on finding your Private Key on different servers and control panels.
If you chose to create your CSR in-browser during SSL activation, the Private Key is generally downloaded as a zip file to your computer’s “Downloads” folder by default. Alternatively, if you changed your browser settings to save downloaded files to a different folder, it should be saved there.
The file name will consist of your domain name, the word “key”, and the file extension “.zip”. For instance, for a website called example.com, the file name would be “ example_com_key.zip ”.
If you can’t find the Private Key in the previously mentioned folders, use your computer’s search function and enter the file name (i.e., example_com_key.zip). If you still can’t find the Private Key, you will need to get your SSL reissued . Because the in-browser CSR generation method creates the Private Key directly on your device, there’s no way of restoring it if it’s lost. This is why it’s essential to save your Private Key and back it up if you choose this method.
Normally, the CSR/RSA Private Key pairs on Linux-based operating systems are generated using the OpenSSL cryptographic engine and saved as files with “.key” or “.pem” extensions on the server.
But no specific extensions are mandatory for text files in Linux, so the key file may have any name and extension, or no extension at all.
If you remember the whole name of the key file or at least part of it, you can use the following command in your console to find the file and its directory:
The slash symbol in this command implies that the search begins from the root directory of the server. This way you have more file options to view. The name of the file in between the single quotation marks should be the part of the name that you remember. To search for the file by extension, enter “*.key” to view all the files with the “.key” extension on your server.
Tip: often the name of the file corresponds to the domain name it was generated for e.g. “domain_tld.key” or “domain.tld.pem”.
Here’s another useful command that lets you search files by their content:
This command will return the absolute path to the Private Key file if it’s located on your server.
Windows servers don’t let you view the Private Key in plain text format. When you import your Certificate via MMC or IIS, the Private Key is bound to it automatically if the CSR/Key pair has been generated on the same server.
If you need to obtain the Private Key to install your Certificate on a different server, you can export the key in a password-protected PFX (PKCS#12) file. To do that, open the MMC Certificates snap-in tools following these steps:
Win+R > mmc.exe > OK > File > Add/Remove Snap-in > Certificates > Add > Computer account > Next > Local computer > Finish > OK
Next, go to Certificate Enrollment Requests >> Certificates (if you haven’t completed the Certificate request yet). If you’ve done that, you’d select Personal >> Certificates , then right-click the Certificate >> select All Tasks >> Export . The Export wizard will open, and give you instructions. You can find more detailed instructions here .
Once that’s done, you will see the .pfx file containing your Certificate, CA-Bundle, and Private Key. To extract the key, use this tool . Choose the PKCS12 to PEM option, then upload the file and enter your chosen password.
The Keychain tool in the Server application of Mac OS X won’t allow you to access the Private Key via the graphic user interface. Instead use the Terminal, by opening /etc/certificates/ directory and clicking the file.
Its name should be something like “*.key.pem”. And the terminal commands to open the file are: cd /etc/certificates/ , then ls , and sudo nano test.key.pem .
Note : to check if the Private Key matches your Certificate, go here . Then paste the Certificate and the Private Key text codes into the required fields and click Match .
If your Tomcat SSL connector is configured in JSSE style, the Private Key must be in a password-protected keystore file with a .jks or .keystore extension. This file, unlike most other cases, is created before the CSR. To extract the Private Key, you’ll need to convert the keystore into a PFX file with the following command:
After the PKCS12 file is generated, you can convert it to a PEM file with separated CRT, CA-Bundle and KEY files using this tool . Alternatively, use the following command in the terminal:
“Private.key” can be replaced with any key file title you like.
The simplest way to get the appropriate key used during SSL installation is reflected in the below picture:
Alternatively, you can find the Private Key in the Private keys section of the SSL/TLS Manager , which can be located in the cPanel main menu. You will see all the Private Keys ever generated in your cPanel. To view the code of the key, click View & Edit . If there are several keys in that menu, you can copy each of them to find a match with your Certificate code by using this tool .
The matching Private key can also be found in the Certificate Signing Request (CSR) section of the SSL/TLS Manager. For this, open the “Certificate Signing Request (CSR)” menu, locate the CSR code for your certificate, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the link under “This CSR uses the following key”:
Just copy the Private key code from the following window and use it for further installation.
On the homepage of your cPanel, click File manager . Find the folder named “ssl” in the folder tree to the left (see screenshot). That folder will contain another folder named “keys”. This key folder also contains all the keys ever generated in your cPanel.
WHM stores your Private Keys and CSR codes in the SSL Storage Manager menu. On the homepage, click SSL/TLS >> SSL Storage Manager . To view the Private Key, click the magnifier icon next to the relevant key in the Key column.
Click Domains > your domain > SSL/TLS Certificates . You’ll see a page like the one shown below. The key icon with the message “Private key part supplied” means there is a matching key on your server.
To get it in plain text format, click the name and scroll down the page until you see the key code. Alternatively, click the green arrow icon on the right. This will download a PEM file, containing your Private Key, Certificate, and CA-Bundle files (if they were previously imported to the server). The files can be opened in any text editor, such as Notepad.
When generating a CSR in Synology DSM , the Private Key is provided to you in a zip file on the last step. The key code is contained within a server.key file, that can be opened with a text editor, such as Notepad.
Webmin works as a graphic user interface (GUI) on top of the command-line interface. There is also a file manager called Filemin, that you can use to browse the server file system and find your Private Key file. Alternatively, go to Others > Command Shell and run the find or grep command, which you can find in the Linux Operating Systems section above.
Your Private Key needs to be saved during CSR generation, as it will not be available via the graphic user interface.
That said, you may be able to retrieve your Private Key via SSH. It is saved as a temporary file in the “/tmp” folder. The path to the file will look something like this: “/tmp/tmp.npAnkmWFcu/domain.com.key”.
Note: the files in the /tmp directory are deleted every time your server is rebooted, so this is not a safe place to store your Private Key.
To get the path to your key file, use this Linux command:
Where you see “domain.com”, replace this with the actual domain name you generated the CSR for.
The path to your key file can also be found using the grep command:
In the up-to-date version of DirectAdmin, your Private Key is saved on the server. Access it in the “Paste a pre-generated Certificate and key” field during installation.
If that section is empty, it may mean t
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