What are the best practices for handling public key authentication in PHP?

When handling public key authentication in PHP, it is important to securely store the private key and only share the public key. One best practice is to use a library like phpseclib to generate and manage the keys. Additionally, make sure to properly validate the public key when authenticating the user.

// Generate key pair
use phpseclib3\Crypt\RSA;

$rsa = new RSA();
$keys = $rsa->createKey();

$privateKey = $keys['privatekey'];
$publicKey = $keys['publickey'];

// Save private key securely
file_put_contents('private.pem', $privateKey);

// Share public key with users
echo $publicKey;

// Validate public key during authentication
$receivedPublicKey = $_POST['public_key'];

if ($receivedPublicKey === $publicKey) {
    // Authentication successful
} else {
    // Authentication failed
}