Retrieving Raw Certificate Data

CertMonitor allows you to retrieve the raw certificate in both PEM and DER formats for any host.

Get PEM Format

PEM is a base64-encoded, human-readable format commonly used for certificate files.

from certmonitor import CertMonitor

with CertMonitor("example.com") as monitor:
    pem = monitor.get_raw_pem()
    print(pem)

Example Output

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIID...snip...IDAQAB
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

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Get DER Format

DER is a binary format (often used in low-level APIs or for cryptographic operations).

with CertMonitor("example.com") as monitor:
    der = monitor.get_raw_der()
    print(der)  # This will print bytes; you may want to base64-encode for display

Example Output (base64-encoded for readability)

MIID...snip...IDAQAB

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Certificate Retrieval & Info Extraction (Mermaid Diagram)

flowchart TD
    A[Connect to Host:Port] --> B[Detect Protocol]
    B --> C[Retrieve Certificate]
    C --> D[Parse Certificate Info]
    D --> E{User Request}
    E -->|PEM| F[Return PEM]
    E -->|DER| G[Return DER]
    E -->|Info| H[Return Parsed Info]

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When to Use Each Format

• PEM: Use for most file-based operations, OpenSSL, and human inspection.
• DER: Use for binary APIs, cryptographic libraries, or when a raw byte array is required.

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Tip: You can always convert between PEM and DER using OpenSSL or Python's cryptography library if needed.