Creating keystore file programmatically

Question

Hi,
Wondering if you will be able to help me. I would like to find out how you can create a keystore file programmatically without using the keytool command.
What I'm trying to do is generate KeyPairs for the SSL connections. After the keys are signed, I would like to insert the keys into a new keystore file. Is that possible and if it is do you perhaps know how?
Thanks
Julia

Answer 1

Hi Julia,
keytool does not allow you to import private keys into a keystore but, I bypassed this problem this way:
after creating your key pair convert them into the pkcs12 format
openssl pkcs12 -inkey privatekey.key -in certificate.crt -export -out somename.p12
fortunately using the following code that was already posted in the forum, you will be able to create a new keystore with your private key :)
import java.security.*;
import java.io.*;
// assumes you are using a 3rd party keystore library
// for pkcs12 key stores. For some reason, JDK 1.4 won't
// read pkcs12 files exported from MIE / Netscape
class Convert {
static public void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
try {
//pkcs12 keystore
KeyStore ks = KeyStore.getInstance("pkcs12");
//jks keystore
KeyStore ks2 = KeyStore.getInstance("jks");
// load the pkcs12 file
ks.load(new FileInputStream("C:\\insurance.p12"),"insurance123".toCharArray());
// load the jks file (have to have an existing one)
ks2.load(new FileInputStream("C:\\.temp"),"temp123".toCharArray());
//read the p12 certificate
java.security.cert.Certificate [] cc = ks.getCertificateChain("1");
//gets the private key having as alias "1" and as password "insurance123"
Key k = ks.getKey("1", "insurance123".toCharArray());
// add to keystore and save
ks2.setKeyEntry("insurance", k, "insurance123".toCharArray(),cc);
FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream("C:\\newstore.keystore");
ks2.store(out, "insurance123".toCharArray());
out.close();
} catch (Throwable e) { e.printStackTrace(); } }
} //end of the class
the following call:
ks2.load(new FileInputStream("C:\\.temp"),"temp123".toCharArray());
assumes that you already created a keystore (.temp) having for password : temp123
Hope this help :)
KAnis