Differences between "BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY" and "BEGIN PRIVATE KEY"

Question

Hi I was writing a program that imports private keys from a .pem file and create a private key object to use it later.. the problem I have faced is that some pem files header begin with

-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----

while others begin with

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

through my search I knew that the first ones are PKCS#8 formatted but I couldn't know what format does the other one belongs to.

Answer 1

See https://polarssl.org/kb/cryptography/asn1-key-structures-in-der-and-pem (search the page for "BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY") (archive link for posterity, just in case).

BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY is PKCS#1 and is just an RSA key. It is essentially just the key object from PKCS#8, but without the version or algorithm identifier in front. BEGIN PRIVATE KEY is PKCS#8 and indicates that the key type is included in the key data itself. From the link:

The unencrypted PKCS#8 encoded data starts and ends with the tags:

-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
BASE64 ENCODED DATA
-----END PRIVATE KEY-----

Within the base64 encoded data the following DER structure is present:

PrivateKeyInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
  version         Version,
  algorithm       AlgorithmIdentifier,
  PrivateKey      BIT STRING
}

AlgorithmIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
  algorithm       OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
  parameters      ANY DEFINED BY algorithm OPTIONAL
}

So for an RSA private key, the OID is 1.2.840.113549.1.1.1 and there is a RSAPrivateKey as the PrivateKey key data bitstring.

As opposed to BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY, which always specifies an RSA key and therefore doesn't include a key type OID. BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY is PKCS#1:

RSA Private Key file (PKCS#1)

The RSA private key PEM file is specific for RSA keys.

It starts and ends with the tags:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
BASE64 ENCODED DATA
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Within the base64 encoded data the following DER structure is present:

RSAPrivateKey ::= SEQUENCE {
  version           Version,
  modulus           INTEGER,  -- n
  publicExponent    INTEGER,  -- e
  privateExponent   INTEGER,  -- d
  prime1            INTEGER,  -- p
  prime2            INTEGER,  -- q
  exponent1         INTEGER,  -- d mod (p-1)
  exponent2         INTEGER,  -- d mod (q-1)
  coefficient       INTEGER,  -- (inverse of q) mod p
  otherPrimeInfos   OtherPrimeInfos OPTIONAL
}

Answer 2

Have a look at <openssl/pem.h>. It gives possible BEGIN markers.

Copying the content from the above link for quick reference:

#define PEM_STRING_X509_OLD "X509 CERTIFICATE"
#define PEM_STRING_X509     "CERTIFICATE"
#define PEM_STRING_X509_PAIR    "CERTIFICATE PAIR"
#define PEM_STRING_X509_TRUSTED "TRUSTED CERTIFICATE"
#define PEM_STRING_X509_REQ_OLD "NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST"
#define PEM_STRING_X509_REQ "CERTIFICATE REQUEST"
#define PEM_STRING_X509_CRL "X509 CRL"
#define PEM_STRING_EVP_PKEY "ANY PRIVATE KEY"
#define PEM_STRING_PUBLIC   "PUBLIC KEY"
#define PEM_STRING_RSA      "RSA PRIVATE KEY"
#define PEM_STRING_RSA_PUBLIC   "RSA PUBLIC KEY"
#define PEM_STRING_DSA      "DSA PRIVATE KEY"
#define PEM_STRING_DSA_PUBLIC   "DSA PUBLIC KEY"
#define PEM_STRING_PKCS7    "PKCS7"
#define PEM_STRING_PKCS7_SIGNED "PKCS #7 SIGNED DATA"
#define PEM_STRING_PKCS8    "ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY"
#define PEM_STRING_PKCS8INF "PRIVATE KEY"
#define PEM_STRING_DHPARAMS "DH PARAMETERS"
#define PEM_STRING_DHXPARAMS    "X9.42 DH PARAMETERS"
#define PEM_STRING_SSL_SESSION  "SSL SESSION PARAMETERS"
#define PEM_STRING_DSAPARAMS    "DSA PARAMETERS"
#define PEM_STRING_ECDSA_PUBLIC "ECDSA PUBLIC KEY"
#define PEM_STRING_ECPARAMETERS "EC PARAMETERS"
#define PEM_STRING_ECPRIVATEKEY "EC PRIVATE KEY"
#define PEM_STRING_PARAMETERS   "PARAMETERS"
#define PEM_STRING_CMS      "CMS"