pem

Create private keys and certificates with node.js

Installation

Install with npm

npm install pem

Examples

Here are some examples for creating an SSL key/cert on the fly, and running an HTTPS server on port 443. 443 is the standard HTTPS port, but requires root permissions on most systems. To get around this, you could use a higher port number, like 4300, and use https://localhost:4300 to access your server.

Basic https

var https = require('https'),
    pem = require('pem');

pem.createCertificate({days:1, selfSigned:true}, function(err, keys){
    https.createServer({key: keys.serviceKey, cert: keys.certificate}, function(req, res){
        res.end('o hai!')
    }).listen(443);
});

Express

var https = require('https'),
    pem = require('pem'),
    express = require('express');

pem.createCertificate({days:1, selfSigned:true}, function(err, keys){
  var app = express();

  app.get('/',  requireAuth, function(req, res){
    res.send('o hai!');
  });

  https.createServer({key: keys.serviceKey, cert: keys.certificate}, app).listen(443);
});

API

Create a private key

Use createPrivateKey for creating private keys

pem.createPrivateKey(keyBitsize, callback)

Where

• keyBitsize is an optional size of the key, defaults to 2048 (bit)
• callback is a callback function with an error object and {key}

Create a Certificate Signing Request

Use createCSR for creating certificate signing requests

pem.createCSR(options, callback)

Where

• options is an optional options object
• callback is a callback function with an error object and {csr, clientKey}

Possible options are the following

• clientKey is an optional client key to use
• keyBitsize - if clientKey is undefined, bit size to use for generating a new key (defaults to 2048)
• hash is a hash function to use (either md5, sha1 or sha256, defaults to sha256)
• country is a CSR country field
• state is a CSR state field
• locality is a CSR locality field
• organization is a CSR organization field
• organizationUnit is a CSR organizational unit field
• commonName is a CSR common name field (defaults to localhost)
• altNames is a list (Array) of subjectAltNames in the subjectAltName field (optional)
• emailAddress is a CSR email address field

Create a certificate

Use createCertificate for creating private keys

pem.createCertificate(options, callback)

Where

• options is an optional options object
• callback is a callback function with an error object and {certificate, csr, clientKey, serviceKey}

Possible options include all the options for createCSR - in case csr parameter is not defined and a new CSR needs to be generated.

In addition, possible options are the following

• serviceKey is a private key for signing the certificate, if not defined a new one is generated
• serviceCertificate is the optional certificate for the serviceKey
• serial is the unique serial number for the signed certificate, required if serviceCertificate is defined
• selfSigned - if set to true and serviceKey is not defined, use clientKey for signing
• csr is a CSR for the certificate, if not defined a new one is generated
• days is the certificate expire time in days

Export a public key

Use getPublicKey for exporting a public key from a private key, CSR or certificate

pem.getPublicKey(certificate, callback)

Where

• certificate is a PEM encoded private key, CSR or certificate
• callback is a callback function with an error object and {publicKey}

Read certificate info

Use readCertificateInfo for reading subject data from a certificate or a CSR

pem.readCertificateInfo(certificate, callback)

Where

• certificate is a PEM encoded CSR or a certificate
• callback is a callback function with an error object and {country, state, locality, organization, organizationUnit, commonName, emailAddress, validity{start, end}, san{dns, ip}? }

? san is only present if the CSR or certificate has SAN entries.

Get fingerprint

Use getFingerprint to get the SHA1 fingerprint for a certificate

pem.getFingerprint(certificate, callback)

Where

• certificate is a PEM encoded certificate
• callback is a callback function with an error object and {fingerprint}

Get modulus

Use getModulus to get the modulus for a certificate, a CSR or a private key. Modulus can be useful to check that a Private Key Matches a Certificate

pem.getModulus(certificate, callback)

Where

• certificate is a PEM encoded certificate, CSR or private key
• callback is a callback function with an error object and {modulus}

Setting openssl location

In some systems the openssl executable might not be available by the default name or it is not included in $PATH. In this case you can define the location of the executable yourself as a one time action after you have loaded the pem module:

var pem = require('pem');
pem.config({
    pathOpenSSL: '/usr/local/bin/openssl'
});
...
// do something with the pem module

License

MIT