How to store a simple key string inside Java KeySt

Question

I have a file on my FS (a S3 AWS key) that contains a string that is a key I use for encryption process.

I would like to move it a Java KeyStore.

I know how to import a certificate into a KeyStore with keytool but I can't find the way to import a simple string key.

Can you help?

Answer 1

You can not import in the key store arbitrary strings. In the key store you import certification keys that java libraries are using for authentication of remote hosts.

Answer 2

I don't see a way to do it with keytool, but some poking about, I wonder if you could store and retrieve it in code as a PasswordBasedEncryption (PBE) SecretKey. (Disclaimer: I haven't tried this myself).

The resources that drove this thought: PBEKeySpec javadoc and CryptoSpec - Using Password Based Encryption example

Answer 3

You can do this with PBE and JCEKS. I don't think you can do it with JKS. Solution:

Create a keystore to store and get entries from:

keytool -keystore clientkeystore -genkey -alias client -storetype jceks

Now some code to test it out.

   public static String getPasswordFromKeystore(String entry, String keystoreLocation, String keyStorePassword) throws Exception{

        KeyStore ks = KeyStore.getInstance("JCEKS");
        ks.load(null, keyStorePassword.toCharArray());
        KeyStore.PasswordProtection keyStorePP = new KeyStore.PasswordProtection(keyStorePassword.toCharArray());

        FileInputStream fIn = new FileInputStream(keystoreLocation);

        ks.load(fIn, keyStorePassword.toCharArray());

        SecretKeyFactory factory = SecretKeyFactory.getInstance("PBE");

        KeyStore.SecretKeyEntry ske =
                (KeyStore.SecretKeyEntry)ks.getEntry(entry, keyStorePP);

        PBEKeySpec keySpec = (PBEKeySpec)factory.getKeySpec(
                ske.getSecretKey(),
                PBEKeySpec.class);

        char[] password = keySpec.getPassword();

        return new String(password);

    }

    public static void makeNewKeystoreEntry(String entry, String entryPassword, String keyStoreLocation, String keyStorePassword)
            throws Exception {
        SecretKeyFactory factory = SecretKeyFactory.getInstance("PBE");
        SecretKey generatedSecret =
                factory.generateSecret(new PBEKeySpec(
                        entryPassword.toCharArray()));

        KeyStore ks = KeyStore.getInstance("JCEKS");
        ks.load(null, keyStorePassword.toCharArray());
        KeyStore.PasswordProtection keyStorePP = new KeyStore.PasswordProtection(keyStorePassword.toCharArray());

        ks.setEntry(entry, new KeyStore.SecretKeyEntry(
                generatedSecret), keyStorePP);

        FileOutputStream fos = new java.io.FileOutputStream(keyStoreLocation);
        ks.store(fos, keyStorePassword.toCharArray());
    }