P12 certificate "Not enough data" error

Question

I was trying to connect to an endpoint securely using a .p12 file but I keep getting the following error.

_tls_common.js:136
  c.context.loadPKCS12(pfx);
            ^

Error: not enough data
at Error (native)
at Object.createSecureContext (_tls_common.js:136:17)
at Object.TLSSocket._init.ssl.onclienthello.ssl.oncertcb.exports.connect (_tls_wrap.js:1003:48)
at Agent.createConnection (https.js:80:22)
at Agent.createSocket (_http_agent.js:179:26)
at Agent.addRequest (_http_agent.js:141:10)
at new ClientRequest (_http_client.js:147:16)
at Object.exports.request (http.js:31:10)
at Object.exports.request (https.js:197:15)
at Request.start (D:\path_to_project\node_modules\request\request.js:747:30)

The code that generates the error is this:

        request({
            method: 'POST',
            url: config.secureEndpoint.hostname + config.secureEndpoint.path,
            body: XMLAPIResponse.body,
            rejectUnauthorized: false,
            strictSSL: false, 
            agentOptions: {
                //pfx: pfx,
                pfx: 'string_path_to_the_p12_key_file.p12',
                passphrase: 'redacted_password'
            }
        }, function (error, response, body) {
            console.log(response);
            if (response.satusCode == 200) {
                model.updateStatus(ID, 'done');
            } else {
                model.updateStatus(ID, 'error');
            }
        });

I've tried using the https.request method but that yields the same result. I've searched the web for a solution but I came up empty handed.

From what I can tell, it's a problem with the PFX \ P12 key which might not be so far-fetched, considering I received the key from a third-party. The only thing I can think of is converting the key format using openSSL and seeing if that works. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

So the answer lies in the API usage of the https module. As documented in the Node.js https documentation, when providing a pfx-file, it needs to be passed as a bytestream.

You need to read the file and directly pass its contents:

request({
    method: 'POST',
    url: config.secureEndpoint.hostname + config.secureEndpoint.path,
    body: XMLAPIResponse.body,
    rejectUnauthorized: false,
    strictSSL: false, 
    agentOptions: {
        //pfx: pfx,
        pfx: require('fs').readFileSync('string_path_to_the_p12_key_file.p12'),
        passphrase: 'redacted_password'
    }
}

Hope this helps.