NodeJS & SSL - "bad password read"

Question

Node is failing to create a secure context for SSL communications.

Specifically, I'm trying to get remote notifications to work on iOS. I use a module, called node-apn which throws this error:

Error: error:0906A068:PEM routines:PEM_do_header:bad password read at Error (native) at Object.createSecureContext (_tls_common.js:108:19) at Object.exports.connect (_tls_wrap.js:852:21) at apnSocket (/home/Slurp/node_modules/apn/lib/socket.js:56:19) at Connection.<anonymous> (/home/Slurp/node_modules/apn/lib/connection.js:188:17) at _fulfilled (/home/Slurp/node_modules/apn/node_modules/q/q.js:834:54) at self.promiseDispatch.done (/home/Slurp/node_modules/apn/node_modules/q/q.js:863:30) at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (/home/Slurp/node_modules/apn/node_modules/q/q.js:796:13) 

This seems to be a generic error though, and isn't really related to APN specifically.

Answer 1

This is because you've specified a passphrase when generating the cert. This is a password that must be supplied by anyone wanting to use it.

Adding a passphrase field to the credentials solves the problem.

var credentials = {     key: fs.readFileSync('XXX.key', 'utf8'),     cert: fs.readFileSync('XXX.crt', 'utf8'),     passphrase: 'XXXX' }  var httpsServer = https.createServer(credentials, app);