Safe storage of RSA private keys before binding to X.509 cert

[mstjohns at comcast.net]

Store the private key with a self-signed certificate.  Replace the cert when it is issued.  

Sent from Comcast mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Hall
To: security-dev
Sent: 2013-02-20 00:27:51 +0000
Subject: Safe storage of RSA private keys before binding to X.509 cert

Hello,

I have a question about safely storing RSA private keys while waiting for a 
Cerification Request to be processed remotely so a signed X.509 Certificate 
will be returned.

I want to store it inside the PKCS #11 KeyStore so it will be protected while 
we wait for the Certificate to become available, so that both can be bound 
together and then stored.

However, the KeyStore APIs prevent this from succeeding:

If public final void setKeyEntry(String alias, byte[] key, Certificate[] 
chain) is used with keyPair.getPrivate().getEncoded(), it throws 
UnsupportedOperationException.

If public final void setKeyEntry(String alias, Key key, char[] password, 
Certificate[] chain) is used, it throws java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: 
Private key must be accompanied by certificate chain.

If one creates a RAW-type SecretKey using SecretKeySpec privateKeySpec = new 
SecretKeySpec(privateKeyBytes, "RAW"), and attempts to store the RAW 
SecretKey, it throws java.security.KeyStoreException: Cannot convert to PKCS11 
keys caused by java.security.InvalidKeyException: Unknown algorithm RAW.

How is one supposed to store the RSA PrivateKey in a FIPS-safe way, if the 
KeyStore refuses to handle it via any of these APIs? Several threads on 
StackOverflow also mentioned this issue, with no known workaround.

Regards,
Matthew.