How to check my .pem certficate's passphrase in a terminal?

Question

I had to convert a .pfx certificate into a .pem certificate. However, following a bug I am working on, I am wondering whether the .pem's passphrase has been set properly.

How can I check this easily from a terminal/command line?

Answer 1

Actually it's only the key what is protected in the PEM file. You can check the password used to encrypt the key with the following command:

openssl pkey -in /the/pem/file.pem

If it prints the key, then the password you supplied is correct. If it doesn't ask for a password, then it is not protected.

To check it programmatically, use the following:

openssl pkey -in /the/pem/file.pem -passin pass:the_password -noout

and check the $? variable for success. Unfortunately, in this case there is no way to tell whether the key is encrypted or not.