Reading a PKCS#1 or SPKI public key in Java without libraries

Question

I need to use a public key to verify some data in Java, but I can\'t seem to format the key in such a way that Java can use without third-party plugins.

I\'m generat

Answer 1

The following code turns a PKCS#1 encoded public key into a SubjectPublicKeyInfo encoded public key, which is the public key encoding accepted by the RSA KeyFactory using X509EncodedKeySpec - as SubjectPublicKeyInfo is defined in the X.509 specifications.

Basically it is a low level DER encoding scheme which

1. wraps the PKCS#1 encoded key into a bit string (tag 0x03, and a encoding for the number of unused bits, a byte valued 0x00);
2. adds the RSA algorithm identifier sequence (the RSA OID + a null parameter) in front - pre-encoded as byte array constant;
3. and finally puts both of those into a sequence (tag 0x30).

No libraries are used. Actually, for createSubjectPublicKeyInfoEncoding, no import statements are even required.

---

import java.security.KeyFactory;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.interfaces.RSAPublicKey;
import java.security.spec.InvalidKeySpecException;
import java.security.spec.X509EncodedKeySpec;
import java.util.Base64;

public class PKCS1ToSubjectPublicKeyInfo {

    private static final int SEQUENCE_TAG = 0x30;
    private static final int BIT_STRING_TAG = 0x03;
    private static final byte[] NO_UNUSED_BITS = new byte[] { 0x00 };
    private static final byte[] RSA_ALGORITHM_IDENTIFIER_SEQUENCE =
            {(byte) 0x30, (byte) 0x0d,
                    (byte) 0x06, (byte) 0x09, (byte) 0x2a, (byte) 0x86, (byte) 0x48, (byte) 0x86, (byte) 0xf7, (byte) 0x0d, (byte) 0x01, (byte) 0x01, (byte) 0x01,
                    (byte) 0x05, (byte) 0x00};


    public static RSAPublicKey decodePKCS1PublicKey(byte[] pkcs1PublicKeyEncoding)
            throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, InvalidKeySpecException
    {
        byte[] subjectPublicKeyInfo2 = createSubjectPublicKeyInfoEncoding(pkcs1PublicKeyEncoding);
        KeyFactory rsaKeyFactory = KeyFactory.getInstance("RSA");
        RSAPublicKey generatePublic = (RSAPublicKey) rsaKeyFactory.generatePublic(new X509EncodedKeySpec(subjectPublicKeyInfo2));
        return generatePublic;
    }

    public static byte[] createSubjectPublicKeyInfoEncoding(byte[] pkcs1PublicKeyEncoding)
    {
        byte[] subjectPublicKeyBitString = createDEREncoding(BIT_STRING_TAG, concat(NO_UNUSED_BITS, pkcs1PublicKeyEncoding));
        byte[] subjectPublicKeyInfoValue = concat(RSA_ALGORITHM_IDENTIFIER_SEQUENCE, subjectPublicKeyBitString);
        byte[] subjectPublicKeyInfoSequence = createDEREncoding(SEQUENCE_TAG, subjectPublicKeyInfoValue);

        return subjectPublicKeyInfoSequence;
    }

    private static byte[] concat(byte[] ... bas)
    {
        int len = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < bas.length; i++)
        {
            len += bas[i].length;
        }

        byte[] buf = new byte[len];
        int off = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < bas.length; i++)
        {
            System.arraycopy(bas[i], 0, buf, off, bas[i].length);
            off += bas[i].length;
        }

        return buf;
    }

    private static byte[] createDEREncoding(int tag, byte[] value)
    {
        if (tag < 0 || tag >= 0xFF)
        {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Currently only single byte tags supported");
        }

        byte[] lengthEncoding = createDERLengthEncoding(value.length);

        int size = 1 + lengthEncoding.length + value.length;
        byte[] derEncodingBuf = new byte[size];

        int off = 0;
        derEncodingBuf[off++] = (byte) tag;
        System.arraycopy(lengthEncoding, 0, derEncodingBuf, off, lengthEncoding.length);
        off += lengthEncoding.length;
        System.arraycopy(value, 0, derEncodingBuf, off, value.length);

        return derEncodingBuf;
    }   

    private static byte[] createDERLengthEncoding(int size)
    {
        if (size <= 0x7F)
        {
            // single byte length encoding
            return new byte[] { (byte) size };
        }
        else if (size <= 0xFF)
        {
            // double byte length encoding
            return new byte[] { (byte) 0x81, (byte) size };
        }
        else if (size <= 0xFFFF)
        {
            // triple byte length encoding
            return new byte[] { (byte) 0x82, (byte) (size >> Byte.SIZE), (byte) size };
        }

        throw new IllegalArgumentException("size too large, only up to 64KiB length encoding supported: " + size);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
    {
        // some weird 617 bit key, which is way too small and not a multiple of 8
        byte[] pkcs1PublicKeyEncoding = Base64.getDecoder().decode("MFUCTgF/uLsPBS13Gy7C3dPpiDF6SYCLUyyl6CFqPtZT1h5bwKR9EDFLQjG/kMiwkRMcmEeaLKe5qdj9W/FfFitwRAm/8F53pQw2UETKQI2b2wIDAQAB");
        RSAPublicKey generatePublic = decodePKCS1PublicKey(pkcs1PublicKeyEncoding);
        System.out.println(generatePublic);
    }
}

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Notes:

• NoSuchAlgorithmException should probably be caught and put into a RuntimeException;
• the private method createDERLengthEncoding should probably not accept negative sizes.
• Larger keys have not been tested, please validate createDERLengthEncoding for those - I presume it works, but better be safe than sorry.