http://netty.io/netty-all/: Netty is an asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers and clients. (The Netty Project) 
/*
 * Copyright 2016 The Netty Project
 *
 * The Netty Project licenses this file to you under the Apache License,
 * version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
 * with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at:
 *
 *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
 * WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
 * License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
 * under the License.
 */
package io.netty.handler.ssl;

import java.security.PrivateKey;

import javax.security.auth.Destroyable;

import io.netty.buffer.ByteBuf;
import io.netty.buffer.ByteBufAllocator;
import io.netty.buffer.Unpooled;
import io.netty.util.AbstractReferenceCounted;
import io.netty.util.CharsetUtil;
import io.netty.util.IllegalReferenceCountException;
import io.netty.util.internal.ObjectUtil;


This is a special purpose implementation of a PrivateKey which allows the user to pass PEM/PKCS#8 encoded key material straight into OpenSslContext without having to parse and re-encode bytes in Java land. All methods other than what's implemented in PemEncoded and Destroyable throw UnsupportedOperationExceptions. 
See Also:
/**
 * This is a special purpose implementation of a {@link PrivateKey} which allows the
 * user to pass PEM/PKCS#8 encoded key material straight into {@link OpenSslContext}
 * without having to parse and re-encode bytes in Java land.
 *
 * All methods other than what's implemented in {@link PemEncoded} and {@link Destroyable}
 * throw {@link UnsupportedOperationException}s.
 *
 * @see PemEncoded
 * @see OpenSslContext
 * @see #valueOf(byte[])
 * @see #valueOf(ByteBuf)
 */
public final class PemPrivateKey extends AbstractReferenceCounted implements PrivateKey, PemEncoded {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 7978017465645018936L;

    private static final byte[] BEGIN_PRIVATE_KEY = "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\n".getBytes(CharsetUtil.US_ASCII);
    private static final byte[] END_PRIVATE_KEY = "\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n".getBytes(CharsetUtil.US_ASCII);

    private static final String PKCS8_FORMAT = "PKCS#8";

    
Creates a PemEncoded value from the PrivateKey. 
/**
     * Creates a {@link PemEncoded} value from the {@link PrivateKey}.
     */
    static PemEncoded toPEM(ByteBufAllocator allocator, boolean useDirect, PrivateKey key) {
        // We can take a shortcut if the private key happens to be already
        // PEM/PKCS#8 encoded. This is the ideal case and reason why all
        // this exists. It allows the user to pass pre-encoded bytes straight
        // into OpenSSL without having to do any of the extra work.
        if (key instanceof PemEncoded) {
            return ((PemEncoded) key).retain();
        }

        ByteBuf encoded = Unpooled.wrappedBuffer(key.getEncoded());
        try {
            ByteBuf base64 = SslUtils.toBase64(allocator, encoded);
            try {
                int size = BEGIN_PRIVATE_KEY.length + base64.readableBytes() + END_PRIVATE_KEY.length;

                boolean success = false;
                final ByteBuf pem = useDirect ? allocator.directBuffer(size) : allocator.buffer(size);
                try {
                    pem.writeBytes(BEGIN_PRIVATE_KEY);
                    pem.writeBytes(base64);
                    pem.writeBytes(END_PRIVATE_KEY);

                    PemValue value = new PemValue(pem, true);
                    success = true;
                    return value;
                } finally {
                    // Make sure we never leak that PEM ByteBuf if there's an Exception.
                    if (!success) {
                        SslUtils.zerooutAndRelease(pem);
                    }
                }
            } finally {
                SslUtils.zerooutAndRelease(base64);
            }
        } finally {
            SslUtils.zerooutAndRelease(encoded);
        }
    }

    
Creates a PemPrivateKey from raw byte[]. ATTENTION: It's assumed that the given argument is a PEM/PKCS#8 encoded value. No input validation is performed to validate it. 
/**
     * Creates a {@link PemPrivateKey} from raw {@code byte[]}.
     *
     * ATTENTION: It's assumed that the given argument is a PEM/PKCS#8 encoded value.
     * No input validation is performed to validate it.
     */
    public static PemPrivateKey valueOf(byte[] key) {
        return valueOf(Unpooled.wrappedBuffer(key));
    }

    
Creates a PemPrivateKey from raw ByteBuf. ATTENTION: It's assumed that the given argument is a PEM/PKCS#8 encoded value. No input validation is performed to validate it. 
/**
     * Creates a {@link PemPrivateKey} from raw {@code ByteBuf}.
     *
     * ATTENTION: It's assumed that the given argument is a PEM/PKCS#8 encoded value.
     * No input validation is performed to validate it.
     */
    public static PemPrivateKey valueOf(ByteBuf key) {
        return new PemPrivateKey(key);
    }

    private final ByteBuf content;

    private PemPrivateKey(ByteBuf content) {
        this.content = ObjectUtil.checkNotNull(content, "content");
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isSensitive() {
        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public ByteBuf content() {
        int count = refCnt();
        if (count <= 0) {
            throw new IllegalReferenceCountException(count);
        }

        return content;
    }

    @Override
    public PemPrivateKey copy() {
        return replace(content.copy());
    }

    @Override
    public PemPrivateKey duplicate() {
        return replace(content.duplicate());
    }

    @Override
    public PemPrivateKey retainedDuplicate() {
        return replace(content.retainedDuplicate());
    }

    @Override
    public PemPrivateKey replace(ByteBuf content) {
        return new PemPrivateKey(content);
    }

    @Override
    public PemPrivateKey touch() {
        content.touch();
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public PemPrivateKey touch(Object hint) {
        content.touch(hint);
        return this;
    }

    @Override
    public PemPrivateKey retain() {
        return (PemPrivateKey) super.retain();
    }

    @Override
    public PemPrivateKey retain(int increment) {
        return (PemPrivateKey) super.retain(increment);
    }

    @Override
    protected void deallocate() {
        // Private Keys are sensitive. We need to zero the bytes
        // before we're releasing the underlying ByteBuf
        SslUtils.zerooutAndRelease(content);
    }

    @Override
    public byte[] getEncoded() {
        throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
    }

    @Override
    public String getAlgorithm() {
        throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
    }

    @Override
    public String getFormat() {
        return PKCS8_FORMAT;
    }

    
NOTE: This is a JDK8 interface/method. Due to backwards compatibility reasons it's not possible to slap the @Override annotation onto this method. 
See Also:
/**
     * NOTE: This is a JDK8 interface/method. Due to backwards compatibility
     * reasons it's not possible to slap the {@code @Override} annotation onto
     * this method.
     *
     * @see Destroyable#destroy()
     */
    public void destroy() {
        release(refCnt());
    }

    
NOTE: This is a JDK8 interface/method. Due to backwards compatibility reasons it's not possible to slap the @Override annotation onto this method. 
See Also:
/**
     * NOTE: This is a JDK8 interface/method. Due to backwards compatibility
     * reasons it's not possible to slap the {@code @Override} annotation onto
     * this method.
     *
     * @see Destroyable#isDestroyed()
     */
    public boolean isDestroyed() {
        return refCnt() == 0;
    }
}