Openssl Ts

Openssl-ts is a modern openssl wrapper written in typescript with 0 dependencies.

This library is not responsible of doing any filesystem operations (read/write). It just handles the openssl calls.

Output from openssl should be handled by the caller (you).

This project has been testing with Node >= v8.17 and with openssl >= 1.1.1m

Installation

Using npm:

npm install openssl-ts

or using the Yarn package manager:

yarn add openssl-ts

Usage

The signature is pretty simple:

First parameter is an array of strings (openssl arguments). The second parameter is an optional object with the following properties:

• opensslPath: path to the openssl executable.

  You can override this by using the OPENSSL_PATH environment variable as well.

  Default: openssl (must be in the PATH)

• stdin: buffer to be passed to openssl as stdin

  This would be like using cat and piping the input to openssl.

  example: cat private.key | openssl rsa -check

  Why would you want to do this? Simple, sometimes you have the content already on ram and you want to pass it to openssl without the need to first write it to a file.

  Notice: cat is not being used to pipe the input to openssl.

Examples

Using out flag

import { openssl } from 'openssl-ts';

const output = await openssl(['genrsa', '-out', 'private.key', '2048']);

// output is a Buffer
console.log(output.toString());
/*
Generating RSA private key, 2048 bit long modulus (2 primes)
................................................+++++
...........+++++
e is 65537 (0x010001)
*/
// if you want the private.key content, you should read the file from the filesystem

Without `out` flag

import { openssl } from 'openssl-ts';

const output = await openssl(['genrsa', '2048']);

// output is a Buffer
console.log(output.toString());

/*
Generating RSA private key, 2048 bit long modulus (2 primes)
....................................................................+++++
.............................+++++
e is 65537 (0x010001)
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIEowIBAAKCAQEAoNKO2MDD9TzZ9KpSJ7JAuIWDhTY5qZJGbgUltnUKqTts+A7s
...
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
*/

// if you want just the key you must parse the output

Using `in` flag

import { openssl } from 'openssl-ts';

const output = await openssl(['rsa', '-in', 'private.key', '-check']);

// output is a Buffer
console.log(output.toString());


/*
RSA key ok
writing RSA key
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
....
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

*/

Without `in` flag and using stdin

import { openssl } from 'openssl-ts';

const buffer = readFileSync('private.key');

const output = await openssl(['rsa', 'check'], {
  stdin: buffer,
});

// output is a Buffer
console.log(output.toString());

/*
RSA key ok
writing RSA key
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
....
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

*/

Tests

Running all test:

yarn test

Running with coverage:

yarn test:cov

Debugging

You can use the NODE_DEBUG environment variable to enable debugging.

Example:

NODE_DEBUG=openssl node yourscript.js

This will print the openssl command that will be executed and its parameters.