Mbedtls_pk_parse_public_key returns 0xfffffff0 with secp256k1 public key

Mbed TLS Crypto and SSL questions
1

Heija everyone,

i think i’m missing something. I generated a private and public key pair with openSSL.
Lines used:

openssl ecparam -name secp256k1 -genkey -noout -out priv_key.pem

openssl ec -in .\priv_key.pem -pubout -out public_key.pem

This gives me my key pair. for example this
private key:

-----BEGIN EC PRIVATE KEY-----
MHQCAQEEIOBYwBnXMgYHsRSv99H4zgtzSClALIcNBN97QbBPNFzHoAcGBSuBBAAK
oUQDQgAESqPVjJtZ+f7Q5DnhBX/7Xy6CUWi0aEuNbA0JilgF4+T8ruuWl16vrOrI
3dSDDfsafxatLS3BytvtmyOQxye98Q==
-----END EC PRIVATE KEY-----

public key:

-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MFYwEAYHKoZIzj0CAQYFK4EEAAoDQgAESqPVjJtZ+f7Q5DnhBX/7Xy6CUWi0aEuN
bA0JilgF4+T8ruuWl16vrOrI3dSDDfsafxatLS3BytvtmyOQxye98Q==
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

Im trying to parse my public key with mbedtls_pk_parse_public_key to an pk_context. My code looks like this:

int32_t s32Err = 0;
mbedtls_pk_type_t pktype; 

mbedtls_pk_init(&pk);

int32_t tempsize = strlen(ecdsaPublic);

s32Err = mbedtls_pk_parse_public_key(&pk, ecdsaPublic, tempsize + 1);

my public key (ecdsaPublic) is copy/pasted and formatted like the following:

const char* ecdsaPublic =  "-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\n"
                          "MFYwEAYHKoZIzj0CAQYFK4EEAAoDQgAESqPVjJtZ+f7Q5DnhBX/7Xy6CUWi0aEuN\n"
                          "bA0JilgF4+T8ruuWl16vrOrI3dSDDfsafxatLS3BytvtmyOQxye98Q==\n"
                          "-----END PUBLIC KEY-----\n";

If I know let this run, i get 0xFFFFFFF0 as an error code in s32Err. Sadly I cant find this error code anywhere in the library or im not searching at the right place.

If I try the exact same code with another public key, like this one:

"-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\n"
"MFwwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQADSwAwSAJBAMALAAUWI7loxRd++n5VG+E6gl1NEC8Z\n"
"yQmtyzKEdwwJ+qrC9BSi6f5FmutbJYqu1wR6QitVCEXUrtN1rOBCQ78CAwEAAQ==\n"
 "-----END PUBLIC KEY-----\n";

The parsing returns 0.

Has anyone an idea or a hint?
Is my key generation wrong?

Best wishes and thanks for the help and suggestions!

Marc

2

I found the problem. Since I’m using zephyr OS I have a configuration called CONFIG_MINIMAL_LIBC_MALLOC_ARENA_SIZE . Which was to small so I got the error code 0xfffffff0 , which stands for MBEDTLS_ERR_MPI_ALLOC_FAILED . I now doubled my CONFIG_MINIMAL_LIBC_MALLOC_ARENA_SIZE and the parsing works as intended.