5 genrsa - generate an RSA private key
23 The B<genrsa> command generates an RSA private key.
29 =item B<-out filename>
31 the output filename. If this argument is not specified then standard output is
36 the output file password source. For more information about the format of B<arg>
37 see the B<PASS PHRASE ARGUMENTS> section in L<openssl(1)|openssl(1)>.
39 =item B<-des|-des3|-idea>
41 These options encrypt the private key with the DES, triple DES, or the
42 IDEA ciphers respectively before outputting it. If none of these options is
43 specified no encryption is used. If encryption is used a pass phrase is prompted
44 for if it is not supplied via the B<-passout> argument.
48 the public exponent to use, either 65537 or 3. The default is 65537.
50 =item B<-rand file(s)>
52 a file or files containing random data used to seed the random number
53 generator, or an EGD socket (see L<RAND_egd(3)|RAND_egd(3)>).
54 Multiple files can be specified separated by a OS-dependent character.
55 The separator is B<;> for MS-Windows, B<,> for OpenVMS, and B<:> for
60 specifying an engine (by its unique B<id> string) will cause B<genrsa>
61 to attempt to obtain a functional reference to the specified engine,
62 thus initialising it if needed. The engine will then be set as the default
63 for all available algorithms.
67 the size of the private key to generate in bits. This must be the last option
68 specified. The default is 512.
74 RSA private key generation essentially involves the generation of two prime
75 numbers. When generating a private key various symbols will be output to
76 indicate the progress of the generation. A B<.> represents each number which
77 has passed an initial sieve test, B<+> means a number has passed a single
78 round of the Miller-Rabin primality test. A newline means that the number has
79 passed all the prime tests (the actual number depends on the key size).
81 Because key generation is a random process the time taken to generate a key
86 A quirk of the prime generation algorithm is that it cannot generate small
87 primes. Therefore the number of bits should not be less that 64. For typical
88 private keys this will not matter because for security reasons they will
89 be much larger (typically 1024 bits).
93 L<gendsa(1)|gendsa(1)>