Openssl generating private key

I'm trying to generate a private key with passphrase from the command line. For the same pass:: shmicha and the same algo -aes128 i'm getting differents results. It' is normal ? Please help

openssl genrsa -aes128 -passout pass::shmicha -out privkey.pem 2048

Thanks much for the reply! If I understand well, the pass is just a key used to protect the generated key. But I’m still having trouble understanding something. When I display the content of privkey.pem using

`vi privkey.pem`

what does the lines “Xuj1s……………1mGOYJagDmPhhVwesVw2vL0duTpbriFn/zHO” means.

user2916111

Posted 2013-10-24T14:04:55.973

Reputation:

The file you listed is PEM formatted. Your RSA private key has been encrypted with a password and then a Base64 encoding has been applied so that the binary can be expressed as human-readable text in PEM format. The “Xuj1s……………mGOYJagDmPhhVwesVw2vL0duTpbriFn/zHO” text is the result of Base64 encoding the binary. – None – 2013-10-25T17:23:59.717

Answers

zozo is correct. You are mixing things up. The command you are using in your question generates an RSA private key encrypted with AES128 using the passphrase ":shmicha". To prove this, try to list out the contents of "privkey.pem" with this command:

openssl rsa -in privkey.pem -text

This will prompt you for a passphrase. When you enter ":schmicha", it will list out the contents. Yes, ":" is the first letter of the passphrase. I'm not sure if that was your intention, but that is what you told it to use. If you don't enter that passphrase, it won't list out the private key.

In your comment to zozo's answer, you mention that your key works when you use the command:

openssl enc -aes128 -a -in test -K C2CBF98262F7F9D1D5880279C25AA5E4 -iv 0

You are not even using your RSA key when you use this command. This command is encrypting a file called "test" using aes128 and the key "C2CBF98262F7F9D1D5880279C25AA5E4". This command has nothing to do with the RSA key you generated in your question.

The genrsa command will generate a new and different private key every time. You are just using the same passphrase to encrypt the different keys.

gtrig

Posted 2013-10-24T14:04:55.973

Reputation: 126

Yes, is normal. The private key has a random component. The pass must be input when using the key, is not the phrase the key is based on.

zozo

Posted 2013-10-24T14:04:55.973

Reputation: 121

thank you for your response. But normally when i encrypt file with the generated key (explicitly) i don't use the pass. – None – 2013-10-24T15:58:01.453

openssl enc -aes128 - a -in test -K C2CBF98262F7F9D1D5880279C25AA5E4 -iv 0 – None – 2013-10-24T16:00:48.123