We have an application that needs to access the private key of a certificate. We also have have a Nightlybuild that sets the certificate up (imports it from a pfx file using certmgr). This works really fine as long as the setup of the certificate and the access of the certificate runs under the same logged in Windows user (Windows7).
Now, we would like to introduce a test (that is executed during the Nightlybuild automatically) where another user will invoke the program that needs to access the private key of the certificate and I am struggling with the MMC console -> All Tasks -> Manage Private Keys.
For me it looks like I can change anything in the security settings of "Manage Private keys", but it does not have anything to do with the real ACLs of the certificate. I could reduce the problem to the following manual steps:
User1 imports the certificate into "Local Computer/My" (correct CA in root exists)
User1 selects the certificate in MMC, clicks on "Manage Private Keys" and adds "Users" (group) and "User2" (user) with Full Control permissions.
User1 logs out
User2 logs in
User2 opens MMC, clicks on "Manage Private Keys" --> Error, the MMC console displays "Cannot find the certificate and private key for decryption."
Although User2 should have access to the private key. So it seems to me that the settings of User1 (both, User1 and User2 are in the Administrators group) in MMC have no meaning whatsoever and are ignored by the .NET API that accesses the private key?
Does anybody have any idea why this is so and how I can try to persuade Windows that we really want two users to be able to read the private key of a certificate?
Thanks for any help
Michael
I just ran into this same issue. I was trying to use a code signing certificate as a user that did not import the certificate on the system. When the certificate was originally imported, it was not imported so that the private keys could be exported.
I was able to fix our issue by:
Deleting the existing certificate from the certificate store
Importing the certificate again while making sure it allows exporting of the private keys
Use Manage Private Keys to set the permissions so the second user can access the private keys
After these steps my second user was able to use the code signing certificate properly.
Related
I am trying to recreate a Developer ID Application certificate, so I can sign my application. I had an existing certificate, but it's about to expire, so I am trying to regenerate a new one.
However, when I download a newly generated certificate from developer.apple.com, the imported certificate has no key as its child node in Keychain Access. The old certificate had this. When I attempt to use the certificate for code signing I receive something like:
/tmp/myapp.app/Contents/app/bin/myapp.exe: errSecInternalComponent
I am following the instructions to obtain a signed certificate using Certificate Assistant:
Ensuring nothing is selected in Keychain Access, click Keychain Access > Certificate Assistant > Request a Certificate from a Certificate Authority.
I enter my email, accept the default Common Name and click Saved to disk.
In developer.apple.com I click the "+" to Create a New Certificate
I choose Developer ID Application
I upload the CSR I saved above
I download the .cer file that is generated
I open the .cer file. This adds the certificate.
As you can see, the certificate does not have a private key inside it, like the old one:
Unfortunately I don't have the old certificate now having deleted it in a fit of pique but it looked like this:
... although in my case it had my private key.
I've noticed reference to the claim that creating a CSR also creates a public/private key pair, but I cannot see these anywhere in Keychain Access.
Later, I did manage to import the certificate and it show the private key. I think this was when I imported it into the same keychain as that which contains a private key "Dan Gravell" - login. However, I have since tried replicating that and now the certificate is being imported without a key again.
Xcode appearance
I've discovered there's a little more information in Xcode. The certificate shows "Missing Private Key" next to it:
When I look this error up, the suggestions seem to be that the certificate has been given to a developer by some third party that didn't include the private key. However, in my case I am that third party who has created the CSR and received the certificate originally and I thought I had the private key, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to create the CSR in the first place. All these items appear to be in my keychain.
I (eventually) got a reply from Developer Program Support. They issued a new certificate which I installed via XCode this time. I documented my other steps here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/74210449/28190
I'm developing a macos app that has to access certificates in the keychain. I would like to automatically test the app, but macos always gives me the prompt for the password for access to the private key of the certificate. Is there a way to automatically allow my app access to the certificate and keychain. I tried to import the certificate with the -T option with the security tool but that unfortunately didn't work.
I'm looking for a way, using Apple's security tool, to delete a private key from the keychain. In this specific case, the private key also has a certificate associated with it with which it forms an identity (certificate + private key), so you can click on the "certificates" section of Keychain Access, right-click on the "Imported Private Key" in the drop-down menu and click "Delete":
As far as I can tell, however, there is no way to do this using the security tool (cf. https://ss64.com/osx/security.html); the commands available for deleting are
> security help | grep delete
delete-keychain Delete keychains and remove them from the search list.
delete-generic-password Delete a generic password item.
delete-internet-password Delete an internet password item.
delete-certificate Delete a certificate from a keychain.
delete-identity Delete an identity (certificate + private key) from a keychain.
delete-identity would also delete the certificate. Is there any way to programmatically achieve the same effect as the Keychain Access command?
(I did notice Delete Private Key from Keychain and Delete Private key from keychain mac programmatically which have references to Swift and Objective-C solutions, but I'd prefer to use either Go or an Apple command-line tool).
I ended up doing this circuitously by using security delete-identity to delete the certificate and private key and then using security import to re-import just the certificate.
I want to retrieve the private key of a user certificate under Windows.
I use the CertOpenSystemStore and CertEnumCertificatesInStore methods to retrieve the user certificate.
Then the CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey method to retrieve the private key but there is a problem with the access rights.
Is this the right way to proceed?
The Certificate of a User Account is not stored in the 'Computer Store', if you need permissions on a key stored in the Computer store, you need to:
run certlm.msc
navigate to the certificate
right click > 'all Tasks' > 'Manage Private Keys ...'
set your desired permissions
If the certificate is in a user store, you must impersonate that user and access its personal store. In this case, you can export the key if the key is marked as exportable.
If the key is generated by a PKI, there is also the possibility that the key is available at the PKI but this depends strong on the configuration of the PKI
I am unable to install a mobile provisioning certificate on iOS 5 because I get this error:
The container "…" must contain only one certificate and its private key.
I used the same process that worked in the past but on iOS 5 it doesn't work and I have no idea how to export my certificate in a "desirable" state.
I was able to fix this by exporting the private key from the "Certificates" Category of Keychain, rather than exporting the Key directly.
So export the NAME of the cert, not the private key itself, and you should be good to go.
I think a more specific answer is that you...
open up Keychain app
(I am assuming you already have the key pair of your Identity in a keychain )
Like #Brent Shaffer says, choosing from "Certificates" is more straight forward
(The reason being is that the Keychain App logically groups the Certificate and private key for identities when using the "Certificates" view)
SHIFT-select both your SMIME certificate and its corresponding private key
right-click the selection and choose 'Export 2 Items'
Save as a (.p12) file with a very strong password
email the .p12 file to your email account
And from your iphone Mail app you can tap the .p12 file
and Mail will suggest to import this as a Profile. You will need the password from earlier.