Converting PEM certificates to a different format
If needed, you can convert PEM certificates to a different format, such as PFX or PKCS#7.
Before you begin
You must have:
-
The original private key that was used for the certificate
-
A PEM (
.pem
,.crt
,.cer
) file -
OpenSSL
About this task
Certificates are commonly issued as PFX files, with the extension .pfx
or .p12
. If you have a certificate in another format, you can convert it to PFX and import it to PingOne.
The PKCS#7 or P7B format is stored in Base64 ASCII format and has a file extension of .p7b
or .p7c
. A P7B file contains certificates but not the private key.
Steps
-
Open a terminal window.
-
Run the command for the conversion you want to perform:
Choose from:
-
PEM to PFX:
openssl pkcs12 -export -out certificate.pfx -inkey privateKey.key -in certificate.crt -certfile more.crt
Syntax Description openssl
The command for executing OpenSSL.
pkcs12
The file utility for PKCS#12 files in OpenSSL.
-export -out certificate.pfx
Exports and saves the PFX file as
certificate.pfx.
-inkey privateKey.key
Uses the private key file
privateKey.key
as the private key to combine with the certificate.-in certificate.crt
Uses
certificate.crt
as the certificate to combine with the private key.-certfile more.crt
(Optional) Use this option if you have more than one certificate you want to include in the PFX file.
-
PEM to PKCS#7:
openssl crl2pkcs7 -nocrl -certfile certificate.crt -out certificate.p7b -outform DER
Syntax Description openssl
The command for executing OpenSSL.
crl2pkcs7
The file utility for PKCS#7 files in OpenSSL.
-nocrl
Specifies to not include a certificate revocation list (CRL) in the output file and to not read a CRL from the input file.
-certfile certificate.crt
Specifies a filename containing one or more certificates in PEM format. All certificates in the file are added to the PKCS#7 structure. You can use this option more than once to read certificates from multiple files.
-out certificate.p7b
Outputs the file as
certificate.p7b
.-outform DER
Specifies the PKCS#7 structure output format. The distinguished encoding rules (DER) format is a DER-encoded CRL structure.
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