Import RSA keys to iPhone keychain?

Question

I have a couple of NSString objects that represent an RSA public-private keypair (not generated by SecKeyCreatePair, but by an external crypto library). How can I create SecKeyRef objects (which are required for the SecKeyDecrypt/Encrypt methods) from these NSString objects?

Do I need to import them into the Keychain first? If so, how?

Thanks!

Answer 1

So in iOS, the keychain is sandboxed, AFAIK. This means that whatever you put into the keychain is only accessible by your app and your app alone unless you specify otherwise. You have to enable Keychain Sharing under Capabilities in the project settings.

Now that that's out of the way, you can certainly import the data. Since they're NSString objects, you'd first have to convert that to NSData objects to import them correctly. Most likely, they're encoded in Base64, so you'lL have to reverse that:

NSData *decodedData = [[NSData alloc] initWithBase64EncodedString:base64String options:0];

Now that that's done, you can use this method to both save your key to the keychain and get the SecKeyRef:

/**
 * key: the data you're importing
 * keySize: the length of the key (512, 1024, 2048)
 * isPrivate: is this a private key or public key?
 */
- (SecKeyRef)saveKeyToKeychain:(NSData *)key keySize:(NSUInteger)keySize private:(BOOL)isPrivate {
    OSStatus sanityCheck = noErr;
    NSData *tag;
    id keyClass;

    if (isPrivate) {
        tag = privateTag;
        keyClass = (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeyClassPrivate;
    }
    else {
        tag = publicTag;
        keyClass = (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeyClassPublic;
    }

    NSDictionary *saveDict = @{
            (__bridge id) kSecClass : (__bridge id) kSecClassKey,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeyType : (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeyTypeRSA,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrApplicationTag : tag,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeyClass : keyClass,
            (__bridge id) kSecValueData : key,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeySizeInBits : [NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInteger:keySize],
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrEffectiveKeySize : [NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInteger:keySize],
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrCanDerive : (__bridge id) kCFBooleanFalse,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrCanEncrypt : (__bridge id) kCFBooleanTrue,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrCanDecrypt : (__bridge id) kCFBooleanFalse,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrCanVerify : (__bridge id) kCFBooleanTrue,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrCanSign : (__bridge id) kCFBooleanFalse,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrCanWrap : (__bridge id) kCFBooleanTrue,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrCanUnwrap : (__bridge id) kCFBooleanFalse
    };

    SecKeyRef savedKeyRef = NULL;
    sanityCheck = SecItemAdd((__bridge CFDictionaryRef) saveDict, (CFTypeRef *)&savedKeyRef);
    if (sanityCheck != errSecSuccess) {
        LOGGING_FACILITY1(sanityCheck != noErr, @"Problem saving the key to keychain, OSStatus == %d.", sanityCheck);
    }

    return savedKeyRef;
}

Later, if you want to retrieve the SecKeyRef from the keychain, you can use this:

- (SecKeyRef)getKeyRef:(BOOL)isPrivate {
    OSStatus sanityCheck = noErr;
    NSData *tag;
    id keyClass;
    if (isPrivate) {
        if (privateKeyRef != NULL) {
            // already exists in memory, return
            return privateKeyRef;
        }
        tag = privateTag;
        keyClass = (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeyClassPrivate;
    }
    else {
        if (publicKeyRef != NULL) {
            // already exists in memory, return
            return publicKeyRef;
        }
        tag = publicTag;
        keyClass = (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeyClassPublic;
    }

    NSDictionary *queryDict = @{
            (__bridge id) kSecClass : (__bridge id) kSecClassKey,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeyType : (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeyTypeRSA,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrApplicationTag : tag,
            (__bridge id) kSecAttrKeyClass : keyClass,
            (__bridge id) kSecReturnRef : (__bridge id) kCFBooleanTrue
    };

    SecKeyRef keyReference = NULL;
    sanityCheck = SecItemCopyMatching((__bridge CFDictionaryRef) queryDict, (CFTypeRef *) &keyReference);
    if (sanityCheck != errSecSuccess) {
        NSLog(@"Error trying to retrieve key from server. isPrivate: %d. sanityCheck: %li", isPrivate, sanityCheck);
    }

    if (isPrivate) {
        privateKeyRef = keyReference;
    }
    else {
        publicKeyRef = keyReference;
    }
    return keyReference;
}