So an employee of mine purchased an SSL certificate and misplaced the
RSA private key used to generate the CSR.

He still has the TXT version of the key and we need to convert it to
PEM format so apache can read it.

I'm looking for a way to convert the TXT version of the key to PEM
format.  The openssl program does not seem to have a conversion
mechanism of this sort.

Details:

1)  We have the private key in this format:

Private-Key: (1024 bit)
modulus:
    00:ad:c1:43:d8:5f:14:eb:bb:94:7c:05:b3:e5:fc:
....


If anyone can figure out how to do this, you will save the day!

isn't PEM text format anyway?
http://www.mkssoftware.com/docs/man1/openssl_dsa.1.asp

(I mean, can you read it? with cat/emacs/vim?) (make and open a copy)

Please ignore the previous comment.

Actually, I may not be so stupid, is there a section
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
........
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

In your output file?
It is the same thing as what your .pem should be.

I tried the above on my own. Of course, I do recommend you back up any
.pem's before overwriting them.

Also, the text file you mentioned must have been generated with a
command like openssl rsa -in privkey.pem -text -out outfile.txt

Exactly, the file that I have was the output of 

openssl rsa -in privkey.pem -text -out outfile.txt

I need a way to get that outfile.txt back to PEM format.  No luck
finding this out on my own yet.

Thanks for the posting!

I don't think you understand what I said above, the part that has
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
........
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
in your txt file *IS* the .pem 
copy and paste that part into a file filename.pem. That's your key.

There is no

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
........
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

in the file.  The employees, for some reason, saved everything above that
portion of the output.  I know this is really stupid but it's what we're
stuck with.

For clarification, I will paste similar output below (different private key),
same printout format.  I need to get from that format to the format above.


Private-Key: (1024 bit)
modulus:
    00:bb:f8:0b:0a:fd:59:12:5b:ef:57:f1:cc:66:b3:
    5c:d3:fd:9f:dc:61:82:b3:51:40:d4:ab:cb:73:d3:
    72:d9:e3:7e:77:08:a1:1f:75:b4:18:0e:ca:b1:ce:
    d6:6a:2a:57:40:e1:ce:2b:7d:e1:51:c6:71:92:9c:
    e6:94:b4:b7:cd:16:25:73:0f:d3:00:fb:06:b5:bf:
    1b:b7:2a:ce:13:46:12:5d:b0:de:49:fd:1e:96:a7:
    3d:26:83:70:32:58:75:5f:26:e1:95:cd:99:4c:d9:
    22:9f:9d:35:89:fa:df:2b:16:cb:e1:14:b1:08:0d:
    5d:97:b3:32:3b:cd:3d:52:cd
publicExponent: 65537 (0x10001)
privateExponent:
    00:82:2a:db:3a:d9:06:fd:b7:bc:9f:62:4a:f2:33:
    f3:6c:ba:8e:21:c7:45:03:78:99:34:ad:63:4e:ea:
    76:f6:7c:9b:ef:42:82:91:8e:a9:10:9f:ed:ae:04:
    56:67:5e:ba:dd:ab:81:62:8c:e1:a4:07:90:4e:bf:
    68:ce:41:f7:a5:56:1a:49:e0:c9:7b:10:50:d6:34:
    85:2d:71:96:a5:36:53:f7:23:57:0b:91:a9:e3:64:
    34:d6:e7:00:04:ac:b8:bb:31:99:43:64:11:13:c3:
    d0:0a:97:ab:7a:2c:d0:e3:df:30:ca:5c:cf:67:77:
    46:be:03:01:42:08:df:b1:e1
prime1:
    00:e7:44:ed:0a:cc:e4:92:6a:f5:49:d2:b7:d1:cf:
    97:be:7c:89:11:1e:bb:39:cb:5d:43:51:0c:fc:0f:
    1c:21:b0:ff:56:f5:1b:06:4d:e5:91:38:aa:ce:c9:
    56:43:8d:27:8e:1f:c8:9d:76:5a:38:93:9d:7a:44:
    6f:17:17:f6:6f
prime2:
    00:d0:11:c1:91:92:91:0c:9e:9a:62:fd:72:05:14:
    ea:bc:bc:b2:c8:8d:6d:c5:98:82:5e:af:b4:1b:e5:
    26:63:2f:8c:90:68:01:ac:de:e0:53:94:7f:1e:88:
    42:8f:97:98:22:2a:2b:40:6f:ad:91:61:7b:17:ac:
    d5:b9:85:48:83
exponent1:
    5e:09:50:b9:4b:86:c5:62:68:4a:94:3b:da:3c:26:
    df:75:93:e6:3a:30:b6:d7:52:1c:c5:20:1a:7d:aa:
    5a:a8:b5:aa:8e:0f:67:08:d5:87:af:1b:04:ea:29:
    01:5e:ab:ee:c6:4d:b4:79:23:46:4d:ff:82:6f:c1:
    1c:0a:ca:51
exponent2:
    00:9d:97:b5:4a:f2:fe:15:d6:d3:0c:82:f6:27:4f:
    2e:74:01:60:50:72:7e:60:19:21:35:62:53:42:85:
    8f:4b:b4:a9:fc:7e:2a:36:ab:20:b1:6d:59:d2:e0:
    55:b9:b8:92:2b:de:50:a0:1f:76:11:15:0a:4c:66:
    46:02:9c:26:cd
coefficient:
    35:58:bf:14:30:7f:08:d1:b1:91:8c:19:a2:eb:02:
    e6:af:74:3c:4e:ff:60:1c:21:e8:30:c5:ef:2c:06:
    28:e4:46:6b:2d:6d:70:a7:d7:40:d7:fc:75:14:4f:
    88:e7:f2:be:da:95:02:eb:ca:aa:81:12:cb:7e:53:
    d5:13:a2:ca

And I guess it's too much to hope you actually had a backup on tape or
something... :) if you use the -noout command, it doesn't append the
RSA private key...

Here's an interesting "Google Groups" post... but I don't know what to
*do* with it... http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=aidbli%24kc%241%40FreeBSD.csie.NCTU.edu.tw&rnum=6&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dconvert%2520rsa%2520text%2520key%2520to%2520pem%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwg

Here's another stab...
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=pan.2002.04.13.20.44.44.148187.11081%40wanadoo.fr&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26q%3Dconvert%2Brsa%2Bmodulus%2Bto%2Bpem%26btnG%3DSearch

I think there is hope, but I personally don't know what to say. There
is someone in those two links who actually could do it and fixed their
situation, so it's not all lost.

That's the solution!  Thank you so much.  I built a small c program from the
example on this page:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=aidbli%24kc%241%40FreeBSD.csie.NCTU.edu.tw&rnum=6&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dconvert%2520rsa%2520text%2520key%2520to%2520pem%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwg

And I was able to get the PEM format of the key generated.  So how can I get you
the credit for answering this?

I am not a Google Answers Researcher :) Your success is my reward (TM) :).

(To know a GA Researcher, their username is hyperlinked.)

PS :) You may desire to cancel the question :)