jsonwebtoken token not generated with RS256 algorithm in Node.js

Question

I used jsonwebtoken package in node.js to generate token. Everything is working fine if i use HS256 / HS384 / HS512 algorithm. But when i use other algorithm like RS256 / PS256 / ES256 it will throw an error. I like to know what i did wrong. Thanks in advance.

jwt.sign({ foo: 'bar' }, 'this is a secret key', { algorithm: 'RS256' }, function (err, token) {
          if (err) {
            console.log(err)
          }
          console.log(token);
        });

Error:

Error: error:0909006C:PEM routines:get_name:no start line
    at Sign.sign (internal/crypto/sig.js:84:29)
    at Object.sign (D:\Git\contact-node\node_modules\jwa\index.js:152:45)
    at jwsSign (D:\Git\contact-node\node_modules\jws\lib\sign-stream.js:32:24)
    at SignStream.sign (D:\Git\contact-node\node_modules\jws\lib\sign-stream.js:58:21)
    at SignStream.<anonymous> (D:\Git\contact-node\node_modules\jws\lib\sign-stream.js:46:12)
    at Object.onceWrapper (events.js:299:28)
    at DataStream.emit (events.js:210:5)
    at DataStream.<anonymous> (D:\Git\contact-node\node_modules\jws\lib\data-stream.js:32:12)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:75:11) {
  library: 'PEM routines',
  function: 'get_name',
  reason: 'no start line',
  code: 'ERR_OSSL_PEM_NO_START_LINE'
}

Try to read this post on github - https://github.com/auth0/node-jsonwebtoken/issues/642 — Vasyl Moskalov, Jul 15 '20 at 05:48

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 15 '20 at 05:54

Apparently, the algorithms RS256 and the others you specified are assymetric algorithms. You have to generate two different keys (public and private keys) and use the private key to encode and public to decode. So use the generated keypair. Refer How to create public and private key with openssl? to generate the keys. And HS256 is a symmetric algorithm, so it uses only one secret key.

jsonwebtoken token not generated with RS256 algorithm in Node.js

1 Answers1