Local SSL certificate returning errors "result too small", "problems getting password"

Question

I'm trying to install an SSL certificate on XAMPP, Windows 10 but no matter what I do I get this error:

22632:error:28069065:lib(40):UI_set_result:result too small:.\crypto\ui\ui_lib.c:830:You must type in 4 to 511 characters
22632:error:0906406D:PEM routines:PEM_def_callback:problems getting password:.\crypto\pem\pem_lib.c:116:
22632:error:0907E06F:PEM routines:DO_PK8PKEY:read key:.\crypto\pem\pem_pk8.c:130:
unable to load Private Key
18224:error:0906D06C:PEM routines:PEM_read_bio:no start line:.\crypto\pem\pem_lib.c:707:Expecting: ANY PRIVATE KEY
server.csr: No such file or directory
Could Not Find c:\xampp\apache\server.csr
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.

-----
Das Zertifikat wurde erstellt.
The certificate was provided.

Press any key to continue . . .

makecert.bat:

@echo off
set OPENSSL_CONF=./conf/openssl.cnf

if not exist .\conf\ssl.crt mkdir .\conf\ssl.crt
if not exist .\conf\ssl.key mkdir .\conf\ssl.key

bin\openssl req -new -out server.csr
bin\openssl rsa -in privkey.pem -out server.key
bin\openssl x509 -in server.csr -out server.crt -req -signkey server.key -days 365

set OPENSSL_CONF=
del .rnd
del privkey.pem
del server.csr

move /y server.crt .\conf\ssl.crt
move /y server.key .\conf\ssl.key

pause

It looks like server.crt, server.csr, and server.key were created and they sit in the conf/sll... as stated in makecert.bat , I have also tried other passwords with no success.

Setting set OPENSSL_CONF=C:\xampp\apache\conf\openssl.cnf didn't help either, nor did changing openssl.cnf to openssl.cfg (like some people suggest on other related SO questions).

I'm spamming google with this question for hours and no Stack Overflow answers seemed to help either.

EDIT: Adding an image to show that this issue is happening even with a completely new pem file. (the pem file name was changed to privkey77.pem by me for testing purposes, I get the same error obviously).

png

EDIT #2: Even creating a new key with password with openssl genrsa -des3 -out mykey.pem 2048 returns: 27492:error:28069065:lib(40):UI_set_result:result too small:.\crypto\ui\ui_lib.c:830:You must type in 4 to 1023 characters.

So I basically cannot create pem files with passwords for some reason.

Can anyone please help?

Answer 1

I've managed to avoid this error by passing the -nodes arg to the line that triggers the error, as suggested here.

My makecert.bat file, in line 7, looks like this:

bin\openssl req -new -out server.csr -nodes

This parameter disables the authentication completely. I don't know if this had any side effects in the certificate, since I haven't managed to make it work and I don't know why. (Maybe is because of this, or maybe is something else)