[openssl-users] Need help encrypting my ca.key

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 12:04 AM, jack seth <bird_112 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the response.  First I am running this on Windows 7.   Questions
>
> 1. How can I determine what key format my ca.key is in?
If its binary, then its simply ASN.1/DER encoded.

If its ASCII (human readable) and starts with MII (IIRC), then its
Base64 encoded ASN.1/DER.

If its ASCII (human readable) and starts with ----- BEGIN XXX -----,
then its PEM.

> 2. You say there are multiple key formats for the same key, but for my peace
> of mind I would like to get the same key format that I originally had.  How
> can I do this?

Use -outform to control the output encoding. I think the two values of
interest are DER and PEM.

Jeff