ECDSA key version mismatch from openssl pem files

[the1plummie]

Hi there,

I'm trying to generate ECDSA key pairs, using these 2 commands (on debian):

openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp521r1 -noout -out ecdsa-p521-private.pem
openssl ec -in ecdsa-p521-private.pem -pubout -out ecdsa-p521-public.pem

I end up with these pem contents:

-----BEGIN EC PRIVATE KEY-----
MIHcAgEBBEIBrLSlt+M2LjhfoZw0kcdA9F2cbSlCHmPeCyj/PzXryszQMQ8KQb+1
CZX6B1eXgRi7LIVRDUWVoV9A098tqIuXwaagBwYFK4EEACOhgYkDgYYABAHHPcnH
n1gziRFXawb+fOnnpd8dDRqhgk6yiZsvV9oUKvu7tv+5XavCsdtZIiEaqCctjdGp
01KExDqYCnh2S9ABiwFstThkfIcJ8NkRLHPMEGeQnJFeCE3gAY4MJsd89hAn+7xy
q39PVnqLR3spPc8CKVYwluzvyNhNcU6RSZLJHjWJ8w==
-----END EC PRIVATE KEY-----

-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIGbMBAGByqGSM49AgEGBSuBBAAjA4GGAAQBxz3Jx59YM4kRV2sG/nzp56XfHQ0a
oYJOsombL1faFCr7u7b/uV2rwrHbWSIhGqgnLY3RqdNShMQ6mAp4dkvQAYsBbLU4
ZHyHCfDZESxzzBBnkJyRXghN4AGODCbHfPYQJ/u8cqt/T1Z6i0d7KT3PAilWMJbs
78jYTXFOkUmSyR41ifM=
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

But when I try to read the private key, I'm getting this exception:
java.security.spec.InvalidKeySpecException: java.security.InvalidKeyException: IOException : version mismatch: (supported: 00, parsed: 01
I tried using the pem files in test directory https://github.com/auth0/java-jwt/tree/master/lib/src/test/resources (ec512-key-private.pem, ec512-key-public.pem) and that pair works. So it might be the way I generate the pem files that's messing things up. If you can share how you generated your test pem files that would be great.

Thx!

[lbalmaceda]

You are doing it fine. I think you just forgot to convert the private key to this "newer" pem format:

openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -inform pem -in file.key -outform pem -nocrypt -out file.pem

See if that works. Cheers

[the1plummie]

Ah, that works! Thanks for the pointer!

[youagree]

You are doing it fine. I think you just forgot to convert the private key to this "newer" pem format:

openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -inform pem -in file.key -outform pem -nocrypt -out file.pem

See if that works. Cheers

what is newer format? where i can read about it?

thanks fore reply

[Sirish23-ss]

I used this tool class. But it shows me error of public key null. can anyone help me?