PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) Encoding

PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) Encoding

The moPEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) Encoding

The most commonly used encoding schema for X.509 certificate files is the PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) encoding.

Here is the definition of PEM on wikipedia.com: "Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM), is an early IETF proposal for securing email using public key cryptography. Although PEM became an IETF proposed standard it was never widely deployed or used.

The full specification of PEM is in RFC 1421. But the idea of PEM encoding on X.509 certificates is very simple:

• Encode the content with Base64 encoding.
• Enclose the Base64 encoding output between two lines: "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----" and "-----END CERTIFICATE-----"

Here is a structural sample of a PEM encoded X.509 certificate:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIDODCCAvagAwIBAgIERqplETALBgcqhkjOOAQDBQAwfzELMAkGA1UE...
...
Cgfs2kXj/IQCFDC5GT5IrLTIFxAyPUo1tJo2DPkK
-----END CERTIFICATE----- 

PEM encoded certificate files are supported by almost all applications. "OpenSSL" and "keytool" support PEM encoded certificate files with no problem. See other sections below for test notes.st commonly used encoding schema for X.509 certificate files is the PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) encoding.

Here is the definition of PEM on wikipedia.com: "Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM), is an early IETF proposal for securing email using public key cryptography. Although PEM became an IETF proposed standard it was never widely deployed or used.

The full specification of PEM is in RFC 1421. But the idea of PEM encoding on X.509 certificates is very simple:

• Encode the content with Base64 encoding.
• Enclose the Base64 encoding output between two lines: "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----" and "-----END CERTIFICATE-----"

Here is a structural sample of a PEM encoded X.509 certificate:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIDODCCAvagAwIBAgIERqplETALBgcqhkjOOAQDBQAwfzELMAkGA1UE...
...
Cgfs2kXj/IQCFDC5GT5IrLTIFxAyPUo1tJo2DPkK
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

 

PEM encoded certificate files are supported by almost all applications. "OpenSSL" and "keytool" support PEM encoded certificate files with no problem. See other sections below for test notes.