How to Create a Certificate on keystore to my KeyPair?

Question

How do I create a X509Certificate to my KeyPair? (My class already has the KeyPair and I need to create a certificate which will hold my public key and then store it on a keystore).

I was expecting to have a X509Certificate constructor able to receive my public key and then store it through keystore.setEntry( pvtkey, cert) but I didnt find nothing useful to associate the new certificate and my key pair...

Any idea?

Edit: I also tried to pass certificate chain as null but it doesn't work, it looks like a bug reported on http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do;jsessionid=5866fda73ac1258fcfebef9c3234?bug_id=4906869

Thanks!

Answer 1

There is no Java class in Oracle Java to create an X509Certificate. You either have to

1. use the keytool program (easy, but it isn't java), or
2. write your own custom code (hard),
3. use a third party library like bouncycastle (relatively easy).

EDIT :

As these entries can stay around for quite some time, I should add that the above statements apply to Java 7 and earlier.

Answer 2

Here is a related question with solution how to generate self-signed X509Certificate: link

Try to use BouncyCastle classes in this way:

// generate a key pair
KeyPairGenerator keyPairGenerator = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("RSA", "BC");
keyPairGenerator.initialize(4096, new SecureRandom());
KeyPair keyPair = keyPairGenerator.generateKeyPair();

// build a certificate generator
X509V3CertificateGenerator certGen = new X509V3CertificateGenerator();
X500Principal dnName = new X500Principal("cn=Example_CN");

// add some options
certGen.setSerialNumber(BigInteger.valueOf(System.currentTimeMillis()));
certGen.setSubjectDN(new X509Name("dc=Example_Name"));
certGen.setIssuerDN(dnName); // use the same
// yesterday
certGen.setNotBefore(new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() - 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
// in 2 years
certGen.setNotAfter(new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() + 2 * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
certGen.setPublicKey(keyPair.getPublic());
certGen.setSignatureAlgorithm("SHA256WithRSAEncryption");
certGen.addExtension(X509Extensions.ExtendedKeyUsage, true, new ExtendedKeyUsage(KeyPurposeId.id_kp_timeStamping));

// finally, sign the certificate with the private key of the same KeyPair
X509Certificate cert = certGen.generate(keyPair.getPrivate(), "BC");

Remember to add Security Provider:

Security.addProvider(new BouncyCastleProvider());