Dictionary based bruteforce on a RSA Private Key

I have an RSA Private key for my SSL certificate. Unfortunately I forgot the passphrase. Here is the header info:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
Proc-Type: 4,ENCRYPTED
DEK-Info: AES-256-CBC,9A3F1B0DB81DA3C64E5BCA3534544E04

I would like to perform a dictionary attack to try to crack it. Could anyone tell me how to do it? Maybe using a tool like John The Ripper.

I wrote small python script to do what I wanted. I put the key under the name "ssl.key" and the word list in a file called "wl.lst".

Here's the complete code:

from subprocess import PIPE, Popen
import subprocess
import sys

def cmdline(command):
    proc = subprocess.Popen(str(command), stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True)
    (out, err) = proc.communicate()
    return err

def combinations(words, length):
    if length == 0:
        return []
    result = [[word] for word in words]
    while length > 1:
        new_result = []
        for combo in result:
            new_result.extend(combo + [word] for word in words)
        result = new_result[:]
        length -= 1
    return result

def main():
    words = [line.strip() for line in open('wl.lst')]
    s = b'writing RSA key\r\n';
    print("\n")

    res = combinations(words, 1)
    c = len(res)-1
    for idx, result in enumerate(res):
        str1 = "openssl rsa -in ssl.key -out ssld.key -passin pass:"+result[0]
        if cmdline(str1) == s:
            print("\nKey Found! The key is: "+result[0])
            sys.exit()
        print(str(idx)+"/"+str(c))
    print("\n")

    res = combinations(words, 2)
    c = len(res)-1
    for idx, result in enumerate(res):
        str1 = "openssl rsa -in ssl.key -out ssld.key -passin pass:"+result[0]+result[1]
        if cmdline(str1) == s:
            print("\nKey Found! The key is: "+result[0]+result[1])
            sys.exit()
        print(str(idx)+"/"+str(c))
    print("\n")

    res = combinations(words, 3)
    c = len(res)-1
    for idx, result in enumerate(res):
        str1 = "openssl rsa -in ssl.key -out ssld.key -passin pass:"+result[0]+result[1]+result[2]
        if cmdline(str1) == s:
            print("\nKey Found! The key is: "+result[0]+result[1]+result[2])
            sys.exit()
        print(str(idx)+"/"+str(c))
    print("\n")

    res = combinations(words, 4)
    c = len(res)-1
    for idx, result in enumerate(res):
        str1 = "openssl rsa -in ssl.key -out ssld.key -passin pass:"+result[0]+result[1]+result[2]+result[3]
        if cmdline(str1) == s:
            print("\nKey Found! The key is: "+result[0]+result[1]+result[2]+result[3])
            sys.exit()
        if idx%25 == 0:
            print(str(idx)+"/"+str(c))
    print("\n")

    res = combinations(words, 5)
    c = len(res)-1
    for idx, result in enumerate(res):
        str1 = "openssl rsa -in ssl.key -out ssld.key -passin pass:"+result[0]+result[1]+result[2]+result[3]+result[4]
        if cmdline(str1) == s:
            print("\nKey Found! The key is: "+result[0]+result[1]+result[2]+result[3]+result[4])
            sys.exit()
        if idx%100 == 0:
            print(str(idx)+"/"+str(c))
    print("\n")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

This script is cross platform. To increase or decrease the number of words used in a combination, just add/remove appropriate code blocks.

Note: Removing the display of status can considerably improve speed.