Nginx SSL private key error

kebugcheck

12/11/23, 1:47 AM

I'm configuring Nginx with self-signed SSL certificate. Nginx fails to start due to the following error

[emerg] cannot load certificate key "/path/to/my.key": PEM_read_bio_PrivateKey() failed (SSL: error:0D0680A8:asn1 encoding routines:asn1_check_tlen:wrong tag error:0D07803A:asn1 encoding routines:asn1_item_embed_d2i:nested asn1 error:Type=X509_ALGOR error:0D08303A:asn1 encoding routines:asn1_template_noexp_d2i:nested asn1 error:Field=pkeyalg, Type=PKCS8_PRIV_KEY_INFO error:0907B00D:PEM routines:PEM_read_bio_PrivateKey:ASN1 lib)

The key and certificate are generated using GoCA. Both can be validated using OpenSSL. Furthermore, the key and certificate works fine with Apache httpd. So I suspect this is something related to nginx.

The key file is valid.

$ openssl rsa -noout -text -in my.key
Private-Key: (2048 bit, 2 primes)                                                          
modulus:
publicExponent:
privateExponent:
...

It's format seems OK to me.

-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
...
-----END PRIVATE KEY-----

The certificate is also valid

$ openssl x509 -in my.crt -noout -text
Certificate:
    Data:
        Version: 3 (0x2)
        Serial Number:
...

Nginx version info (from Docker nginx:mainline)

nginx version: nginx/1.23.2
built by gcc 10.2.1 20210110 (Debian 10.2.1-6) 
built with OpenSSL 1.1.1n  15 Mar 2022

376

0 + 0

ssl

nginx

openssl

private-key

certificate-authority

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Nginx SSL private key error

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.