curl/docs/libcurl/opts/CURLOPT_KEYPASSWD.md
Daniel Stenberg 0d6e5944bc
setopt: make CURLOPT_KEYPASSWD work for SSH-only builds
This option is used for both TLS and SSH so it needs to be handled
even in TLS-disabled builds

Mention this in the man page as well.

Follow-up to 52fa8d9
Pointed out by Codex Security
Closes #22121
2026-06-22 00:28:28 +02:00

1.7 KiB

c SPDX-License-Identifier Title Section Source See-also Protocol TLS-backend Added-in
Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al. curl CURLOPT_KEYPASSWD 3 libcurl
CURLOPT_SSH_PRIVATE_KEYFILE (3)
CURLOPT_SSLKEY (3)
TLS
SFTP
SCP
OpenSSL
mbedTLS
Schannel
wolfSSL
7.17.0

NAME

CURLOPT_KEYPASSWD - passphrase to private key

SYNOPSIS

#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_KEYPASSWD, char *pwd);

DESCRIPTION

Pass a pointer to a null-terminated string as parameter. It is used as the password required to use the CURLOPT_SSLKEY(3) or CURLOPT_SSH_PRIVATE_KEYFILE(3) private key. You never need a passphrase to load a certificate but you need one to load your private key.

The application does not have to keep the string around after setting this option.

Using this option multiple times makes the last set string override the previous ones. Set it to NULL to disable its use again.

DEFAULT

NULL

%PROTOCOLS%

EXAMPLE

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    CURLcode result;
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com/foo.bin");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_SSLCERT, "client.pem");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_SSLKEY, "key.pem");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_KEYPASSWD, "superman");
    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
}

HISTORY

This option was known as CURLOPT_SSLKEYPASSWD up to 7.16.4 and CURLOPT_SSLCERTPASSWD up to 7.9.2.

%AVAILABILITY%

RETURN VALUE

curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode indicating success or error.

CURLE_OK (0) means everything was OK, non-zero means an error occurred, see libcurl-errors(3).