Generate base64 url-encoded X.509 format 2048-bit RSA public key with Swift?

Question

Working in Apple Swift for iOS. I have to generate this for the backend as it's a secure app.

I'm new to security and certificates and have been searching for a day now with no results.

How can I generate base64 url-encoded X.509 format 2048-bit RSA public key with swift?

Any help is highly appreciated.

Answer 1

There's a library for handling public-private key pairs in Swift that I recently created called Heimdall, which allows you to easily export the X.509 formatted Base64 string of the public key.

To comply with SO rules, I will also include the implementation in this answer (so that it is self-explanatory)

public func X509PublicKey() -> NSString? {
    // Fetch the key, so that key = NSData of the public key
    let result = NSMutableData()

    let encodingLength: Int = {
        if key.length + 1 < 128 {
            return 1
        } else {
            return ((key.length + 1) / 256) + 2
        }
    }()

    let OID: [CUnsignedChar] = [0x30, 0x0d, 0x06, 0x09, 0x2a, 0x86, 0x48, 0x86,
        0xf7, 0x0d, 0x01, 0x01, 0x01, 0x05, 0x00]

    var builder: [CUnsignedChar] = []

    // ASN.1 SEQUENCE
    builder.append(0x30)

    // Overall size, made of OID + bitstring encoding + actual key
    let size = OID.count + 2 + encodingLength + key.length
    let encodedSize = encodeLength(size)
    builder.extend(encodedSize)
    result.appendBytes(builder, length: builder.count)
    result.appendBytes(OID, length: OID.count)
    builder.removeAll(keepCapacity: false)

    builder.append(0x03)
    builder.extend(encodeLength(key.length + 1))
    builder.append(0x00)
    result.appendBytes(builder, length: builder.count)

    // Actual key bytes
    result.appendData(key)

    // Convert to Base64 and make safe for URLs
    var string = result.base64EncodedStringWithOptions(.allZeros)
    string = string.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("/", withString: "_")
    string = string.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("+", withString: "-")

    return string
}

public func encodeLength(length: Int) -> [CUnsignedChar] {
    if length < 128 {
        return [CUnsignedChar(length)];
    }

    var i = (length / 256) + 1
    var len = length
    var result: [CUnsignedChar] = [CUnsignedChar(i + 0x80)]

    for (var j = 0; j < i; j++) {
        result.insert(CUnsignedChar(len & 0xFF), atIndex: 1)
        len = len >> 8
    }

    return result
}

I have removed the data fetching code, refer to either source of Heimdall or Jeff Hay's answer

Answer 2

If the public key is already in your keychain, you can look up the public key and return the data as base64 with something similar to the following:

// Create dictionary to specify attributes for the key we're
// searching for.  Swift will automatically bridge native values 
// to to right types for the SecItemCopyMatching() call.
var queryAttrs = [NSString:AnyObject]() 
queryAttrs[kSecClass] = kSecClassKey 
queryAttrs[kSecAttrApplicationTag] = publicKeyTag
queryAttrs[kSecAttrKeyType] = kSecAttrKeyTypeRSA
queryAttrs[kSecReturnData] = true

var publicKeyBits = Unmanaged<AnyObject>?()
SecItemCopyMatching(queryAttrs, &publicKeyBits)

// Work around a compiler bug with Unmanaged<AnyObject> types
//  the following two lines should simply be 
//  let publicKeyData : NSData = publicKeyRef!.takeRetainedValue() as NSData
let opaqueBits = publicKeyBits?.toOpaque() 
let publicKeyData = Unmanaged<NSData>.fromOpaque(opaqueBits).takeUnretainedValue()

let publicKeyBase64 = publicKeyData.base64EncodedData(NSDataBase64EncodingOptions.Encoding64CharacterLineLength)

If you need to generate the keypair and store it in the keychain, use something along these lines:

// Create dictionaries to specify key attributes.  Swift will
// automatically bridge native values to to right types for the
// SecKeyGeneratePair() call.
var pairAttrs = [NSString:AnyObject]()
var privateAttrs = [NSString:AnyObject]()
var publicAttrs = [NSString:AnyObject]()

privateAttrs[kSecAttrIsPermanent] = true
privateAttrs[kSecAttrApplicationTag] = privateKeyTag

publicAttrs[kSecAttrIsPermanent] = true
publicAttrs[kSecAttrApplicationTag] = publicKeyTag

pairAttrs[kSecAttrKeyType] = kSecAttrKeyTypeRSA
pairAttrs[kSecAttrKeySizeInBits] = 2048
pairAttrs[(kSecPrivateKeyAttrs.takeUnretainedValue() as! String)] = privateAttrs
pairAttrs[(kSecPublicKeyAttrs.takeUnretainedValue() as! String)] = publicAttrs

var publicKeyPtr = Unmanaged<SecKey>?()
var privateKeyPtr = Unmanaged<SecKey>?()

let status = SecKeyGeneratePair(pairAttrs, &publicKeyPtr, &privateKeyPtr)

Note: publicKeyTag and privateKeyTag are strings used to identify the key in the keystore. Apple recommends reverse-dns notation (com.company.key.xxx), but as long as they are unique, all should be good.

Answer 3

Similar question with answer: Generate key pair on iphone and print to log as NSString

Although the answer there is in Objective-C, Apple reference shows that the functions (especially the most important one, SecKeyGeneratePair) can also be called directly from Swift (as long as you can do the type conversions from all those UnsafeMutablePointers etc).