curl: (58) Unable to load client key -8178

Question

I am facing an SSL issue with the curlcommand. I want to reach an URL using my SSL client certificate and private key.

This is my command:

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Answer 1

I've gone through the same problem, and found a solution finally, maybe it can help you.

The failure was due to the private key in PKCS#8 format:

• a PKCS#8 private key starts with -----BEGIN ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY----- header
  or
  -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY----- header

  With this key curl + openssl will works, but curl + nss + libnsspem.so wouldn't.

• with a RSA private key which starts with
  -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- header

  both curl + openssl and curl + nss + libnsspem.so will work.

So use this command

openssl pkcs8 -in path/to/your/pkcs8/key -out path/to/rsa/key

to convert the PKCS#8 key to traditional RSA key.

Answer 2

If your certificate has a passphrase you should add it after the certificate name:

curl -k -v "https://myurl.com/" --cert ./certificate.pem:passphrase --key ./private.key