ioalexander

If you’ve ever tried to debug an SSL/TLS private key issue, you know how painful it can be. Silent failures, generic errors, and tools that don’t tell you why something’s wrong. That’s exactly why I built openssl-ssh-key-validator.

This package gives developers a fast, reliable way to validate PEM-encoded private keys—RSA, EC, DSA, or PKCS#8—with detailed error messages and exact failure locations.

Why It Matters

Key validation shouldn’t be a black box. With this tool, you get:

• Format-aware checks (PKCS#1, PKCS#8, etc.)
• Header/footer integrity validation
• Base64 integrity checks
• Detection of corrupted or malformed keys
• Precise error types, with line/character positions

It’s lightweight, zero-dependency (except for node-forge), and made for serious developers who want transparent feedback when things go wrong.

Install it

npm add openssl-ssh-key-validator
# or
yarn add openssl-ssh-key-validator

Usage

import { validatePrivateKey } from "openssl-ssh-key-validator";

const pem = `-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
...your key...
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----`;

const result = validatePrivateKey(pem);

if (result.isValid) {
  console.log("Valid key!");
} else {
  console.error(result.message);
}

Summary

openssl-ssh-key-validator helps you catch SSL/TLS key issues early with clear, structured error reporting. Built for reliability. Designed for developers. Leave a star on a github or check out npm.