Problem scenario
You know .crt and .key files can pair as ssl_certificates and SSL certificate keys respectively. In Nginx, can .pem files replace .crt files? Can .pem files potentially replace .key files? Can a .pem file be a substitute?
Solution
Yes to some extent, for the nginx.conf file, a .pem file can replace a .crt file and potentially a .key file too.
To read more, see these:
- https://www.nginx.com/blog/using-free-ssltls-certificates-from-lets-encrypt-with-nginx/
- https://gist.github.com/nrollr/9a39bb636a820fb97eec2ed85e473d38
- https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/43697/what-are-the-differences-between-pem-csr-key-crt-and-other-such-file-exte
- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63195304/difference-between-pem-crt-key-files