.TH "PKI \-\-GEN" 1 "2016-12-13" "5.9.13" "strongSwan"
.
.SH "NAME"
.
pki \-\-gen \- Generate a new RSA or ECDSA private key
.
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.
.SY pki\ \-\-gen
.OP \-\-type type
.OP \-\-size bits
.OP \-\-safe\-primes
.OP \-\-shares n
.OP \-\-threshold l
.OP \-\-outform encoding
.OP \-\-debug level
.YS
.
.SY pki\ \-\-gen
.BI \-\-options\~ file
.YS
.
.SY "pki \-\-gen"
.B \-h
|
.B \-\-help
.YS
.
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.
This sub-command of
.BR pki (1)
is used to generate a new RSA or ECDSA private key.
.
.SH "OPTIONS"
.
.TP
.B "\-h, \-\-help"
Print usage information with a summary of the available options.
.TP
.BI "\-v, \-\-debug " level
Set debug level, default: 1.
.TP
.BI "\-+, \-\-options " file
Read command line options from \fIfile\fR.
.TP
.BI "\-t, \-\-type " type
Type of key to generate. Either \fIrsa\fR, \fIecdsa\fR, \fIed25519\fR,
\fIed448\fR or \fIbliss\fR, defaults to \fIrsa\fR.
.TP
.BI "\-s, \-\-size " bits
Key length in bits. Defaults to 2048 for \fIrsa\fR and 384 for \fIecdsa\fR.
For \fIecdsa\fR only three values are currently supported: 256, 384 and 521.
.TP
.BI "\-p, \-\-safe\-primes"
Generate RSA safe primes.
.TP
.BI "\-f, \-\-outform " encoding
Encoding of the generated private key. Either \fIder\fR (ASN.1 DER) or \fIpem\fR
(Base64 PEM), defaults
to \fIder\fR.
.PP
.SS "RSA Threshold Cryptography"
.TP
.BI "\-n, \-\-shares " <n>
Number of private RSA key shares.
.TP
.BI "\-l, \-\-threshold " <l>
Minimum number of participating RSA key shares.
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.SH "PROBLEMS ON HOSTS WITH LOW ENTROPY"
.
If the
.I gmp
plugin is used to generate RSA private keys the key material is read from
.I /dev/random
(via the
.I random
plugin). Therefore, the command may block if the system's entropy pool is empty.
To avoid this, either use a hardware random number generator to feed
.I /dev/random
or use OpenSSL (via the
.I openssl
plugin or the command line) which is not as strict in regards to the quality of
the key material (it reads from
.I /dev/urandom
if necessary). It is also possible to configure the devices used by the
.I random
plugin in
.BR strongswan.conf (5).
Setting
.B libstrongswan.plugins.random.random
to
.I /dev/urandom
forces the plugin to treat bytes read from
.I /dev/urandom
as high grade random data, thus avoiding the blocking. Of
course, this doesn't change the fact that the key material generated this way is
of lower quality.
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.SH "EXAMPLES"
.
.TP
.B pki \-\-gen \-\-size 3072 > rsa_key.der
Generates a 3072-bit RSA private key.
.
.TP
.B pki \-\-gen \-\-type ecdsa \-\-size 256 > ecdsa_key.der
Generates a 256-bit ECDSA private key.
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.SH "SEE ALSO"
.
.BR pki (1)