Key/Certificate parameters

Quite a few of the openssl functions require a key or a certificate parameter. Following methods may be used to get them:

• Certificates

  1. An OpenSSLCertificate instance (or prior to PHP 8.0.0, a resource of type OpenSSL X.509) returned from openssl_x509_read
  2. A string having the format file://path/to/cert.pem; the named file must contain a PEM encoded certificate
  3. A string containing the content of a certificate, PEM encoded, may start with -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----

• Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs)

  1. An OpenSSLCertificateSigningRequest instance (or prior to PHP 8.0.0, a resource of type OpenSSL X.509 CSR) returned from openssl_csr_new
  2. A string having the format file://path/to/csr.pem; the named file must contain a PEM encoded CSR
  3. A string containing the content of a CSR, PEM encoded, may start with -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----

• Public/Private Keys

  1. An OpenSSLAsymmetricKey instance (or prior to PHP 8.0.0, a resource of type OpenSSL key) returned from openssl_get_publickey or openssl_get_privatekey
  2. For public keys only: an OpenSSLCertificate instance (or prior to PHP 8.0.0, a resource of type OpenSSL X.509)
  3. A string having the format file://path/to/file.pem - the named file must contain a PEM encoded certificate/private key (it may contain both)
  4. A string containing the content of a certificate/key, PEM encoded, may start with -----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
  5. For private keys, you may also use the syntax array($key, $passphrase) where $key represents a key specified using the file:// or textual content notation above, and $passphrase represents a string containing the passphrase for that private key