Is there a way to recover private key from a certificate signing request?
Trying to install an SSL certificate.. Managed to produce a self signed certificate. But have lost the Private Key (Certificate Signing Request) for the certificate that I purchased. Do I have to get the certifcate re-issued or are they saved somewhere? Can only see ssl-cert-snakeoil.key in /etc/ssl/private/
31 Answer
No. The principal of cryptography means that you cannot find out the private key from the public key or from the CSR. Both the public key and the CSR may be shared with other people without them being able to know your private key.
If you have lost your own private key, you will need to generate a new one, get a new CSR based on it, and apply for a re-issue of the certificate. You cannot continue to use your existing certificate if you no longer have your private key.
If you simply don't know where your private key is, then it will be located somewhere on the computer on which you generated the CSR. Most instructions for generating a CSR involve generating a private key and a CSR that is based on the private key, saving the private key on your filesystem somewhere.
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