/usr/man/cat.1/genrsa.1.Z

NAME

       openssl-genrsa, genrsa - generate an RSA private key

SYNOPSIS

       openssl genrsa [-help] [-out filename] [-passout arg] [-aes128]
       [-aes192] [-aes256] [-aria128] [-aria192] [-aria256] [-camellia128]
       [-camellia192] [-camellia256] [-des] [-des3] [-idea] [-f4] [-3] [-rand
       file(s)] [-engine id] [numbits]

DESCRIPTION

       The genrsa command generates an RSA private key.

OPTIONS

       -help
           Print out a usage message.

       -out filename
           Output the key to the specified file. If this argument is not spec-
           ified then standard output is used.

       -passout arg
           the output file password source. For more information about the
           format of arg see the PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS section in openssl(1).

       -aes128|-aes192|-aes256|-aria128|-aria192|-aria256|-camellia128|-camel-
       lia192|-camellia256|-des|-des3|-idea
           These options encrypt the private key with specified cipher before
           outputting it. If none of these options is specified no encryption
           is used. If encryption is used a pass phrase is prompted for if it
           is not supplied via the -passout argument.

       -F4|-3
           the public exponent to use, either 65537 or 3. The default is
           65537.

       -rand file(s)
           a file or files containing random data used to seed the random num-
           ber generator, or an EGD socket (see RAND_egd(3)).  Multiple files
           can be specified separated by an OS-dependent character.  The sepa-
           rator is ; for MS-Windows, , for OpenVMS, and : for all others.

       -engine id
           specifying an engine (by its unique id string) will cause genrsa to
           attempt to obtain a functional reference to the specified engine,
           thus initialising it if needed. The engine will then be set as the
           default for all available algorithms.

       numbits
           the size of the private key to generate in bits. This must be the
           last option specified. The default is 2048.

NOTES

       RSA private key generation essentially involves the generation of two
       prime numbers. When generating a private key various symbols will be
       output to indicate the progress of the generation. A . represents each
       number which has passed an initial sieve test, + means a number has
       passed a single round of the Miller-Rabin primality test. A newline
       means that the number has passed all the prime tests (the actual number
       depends on the key size).

       Because key generation is a random process the time taken to generate a
       key may vary somewhat.

BUGS

       A quirk of the prime generation algorithm is that it cannot generate
       small primes. Therefore the number of bits should not be less that 64.
       For typical private keys this will not matter because for security rea-
       sons they will be much larger (typically 1024 bits).

SEE ALSO

       gendsa(1)

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright 2000-2017 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

       Licensed under the OpenSSL license (the "License").  You may not use
       this file except in compliance with the License.  You can obtain a copy
       in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at
       <https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.

1.0.2t                            2019-09-10                         GENRSA(1)
See also openssl-genrsa(1)