unable to set private key file: './cert.pem' type PEM

After reading cURL documentation on the options you used, it looks like the private key of certificate is not in the same file. If it is in different file, you need to mention it using --key file and supply passphrase.

So, please make sure that either cert.pem has private key (along with the certificate) or supply it using --key option.

Also, this documentation mentions thatNote that this option assumes a "certificate" file that is the private key and the private certificate concatenated!

How they are concatenated? It is quite easy. Put them one after another in the same file.

You can get more help on this here.

I believe this might help you.

I faced this issue when I had used Open SSL and the solution was to split the cert in 3 files and use all of them doing the call with Curl:

openssl pkcs12 -in mycert.p12 -out ca.pem -cacerts -nokeysopenssl pkcs12 -in mycert.p12 -out client.pem -clcerts -nokeys openssl pkcs12 -in mycert.p12 -out key.pem -nocertscurl --insecure --key key.pem --cacert ca.pem --cert client.pem:KeyChoosenByMeWhenIrunOpenSSL https://thesite

I had the same issue, eventually I found a solution that works without splitting the file, by following Petter Ivarrson's answer

My problem was when converting .p12 certificate to .pem. I used:

openssl pkcs12 -in cert.p12 -out cert.pem

This converts and exports all certificates (CA + CLIENT) together with a private key into one file.

The problem was when I tried to verify if the hashes of certificate and key are matching by running:

// Get certificate HASHopenssl x509 -noout -modulus -in cert.pem | openssl md5// Get private key HASHopenssl rsa -noout -modulus -in cert.pem | openssl md5

This displayed different hashes and that was the reason CURL failed. See here: https://michaelheap.com/curl-58-unable-to-set-private-key-file-server-key-type-pem/

I guess that was because all certificates are inside a file (CA + CLIENT) and CURL takes CA certificate instead of CLIENT one. Because CA is first in the list.

So the solution was to export only CLIENT certificate together with private key:

openssl pkcs12 -in cert.p12 -out cert.pem -clcerts``Now when I re-run the verification:```shopenssl x509 -noout -modulus -in cert.pem | openssl md5openssl rsa -noout -modulus -in cert.pem | openssl md5

HASHES MATCHED !!!

So I was able to make a curl request by running

curl -ivk --cert ./cert.pem:KeyChoosenByMeWhenIrunOpenSSL https://thesite.com

without problems!!! 😀

That being said... I think the best solution is to split the certificates into separate file and use them separately like Petter Ivarsson wrote:

curl --insecure --key key.pem --cacert ca.pem --cert client.pem:KeyChoosenByMeWhenIrunOpenSSL https://thesite.com