Here is the code that breaks IIS, after doing research I found the following post X509Certificate2 makes IIS crash and it fixed my problem
var cert = new X509Certificate2();
cert.Import(Resources.wildcard, "xxx", X509KeyStorageFlags.Exportable);
The fixed code
var cert = new X509Certificate2();
cert.Import(Resources.wildcard, "xxx", X509KeyStorageFlags.MachineKeySet | X509KeyStorageFlags.Exportable);
But now this causes my signing to throw the following exception
n exception of type 'System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException' occurred in mscorlib.dll but was not handled in user code
Additional information: Invalid provider type specified.
My code
public class RsaSha1
{
private readonly X509Certificate2 _certificate;
public RsaSha1(X509Certificate2 certificate)
{
_certificate = certificate;
}
public string Sign(string signatureBaseString)
{
return SignCore(signatureBaseString);
}
string SignCore(string baseString)
{
using (var hash = Hash(baseString))
{
return Base64Encode(Sign(hash));
}
}
private static string Base64Encode(byte[] signature)
{
return Convert.ToBase64String(signature);
}
private byte[] Sign(SHA1CryptoServiceProvider hash)
{
var formatter = new RSAPKCS1SignatureFormatter(_certificate.PrivateKey).
Tap(it => it.SetHashAlgorithm("MD5"));
//The line above throws the Exception if X509KeyStorageFlags.MachineKeySet is added,
//but without X509KeyStorageFlags.MachineKeySet my application works in a console application (stress testing) but not in IIS (in a web application)
return formatter.CreateSignature(hash);
}
SHA1CryptoServiceProvider Hash(string signatureBaseString)
{
var sha1 = new SHA1CryptoServiceProvider();
var bytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(signatureBaseString);
using (var crypto = new CryptoStream(Stream.Null, sha1, CryptoStreamMode.Write))
{
crypto.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
}
return sha1;
}
}
EDIT 1: New information, it seems that when I add X509KeyStorageFlags.MachineKeySet then _certificate.PrivateKey would throw the Exception but when I remove X509KeyStorageFlags.MachineKeySet then IIS would crash. PS I am using a certificate generated from StartSSL