tor/doc/man/tor-gencert.1.txt

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:man source:   Tor
:man manual:   Tor Manual
tor-gencert(1)
==============
Tor Project, Inc.

NAME
----
tor-gencert - Generate certs and keys for Tor directory authorities

SYNOPSIS
--------
**tor-gencert** [-h|--help] [-v] [-r|--reuse] [--create-identity-key] [-i __id_file__] [-c
__cert_file__] [-m __num__] [-a __address__:__port__]

DESCRIPTION
-----------
**tor-gencert** generates certificates and private keys for use by Tor
directory authorities running the v3 Tor directory protocol, as used by
Tor 0.2.0 and later. If you are not running a directory authority, you
don't need to use tor-gencert. +

Every directory authority has a long term authority __identity__ __key__ (which
is distinct from the identity key it uses as a Tor server); this key
should be kept offline in a secure location. It is used to certify
shorter-lived __signing__ __keys__, which are kept online and used by the
directory authority to sign votes and consensus documents. +

After you use this program to generate a signing key and a certificate,
copy those files to the keys subdirectory of your Tor process, and send
Tor a SIGHUP signal. DO NOT COPY THE IDENTITY KEY.

OPTIONS
-------
**-v**::
    Display verbose output.

**-h** or **--help**::
    Display help text and exit.

**-r** or **--reuse**::
    Generate a new certificate, but not a new signing key. This can be used to
    change the address or lifetime associated with a given key.

**--create-identity-key**::
    Generate a new identity key. You should only use this option the first time
    you run tor-gencert; in the future, you should use the identity key that's
    already there.

**-i** __FILENAME__::
    Read the identity key from the specified file. If the file is not present
    and --create-identity-key is provided, create the identity key in the
    specified file. Default: "./authority_identity_key"

**-s** __FILENAME__::
    Write the signing key to the specified file. Default:
    "./authority_signing_key"

**-c** __FILENAME__::
    Write the certificate to the specified file. Default:
    "./authority_certificate"

**-m** __NUM__::
    Number of months that the certificate should be valid. Default: 12.

**--passphrase-fd** __FILEDES__::
    Filedescriptor to read the passphrase from. Ends at the first NUL or
    newline. Default: read from the terminal.

**-a** __address__:__port__::
    If provided, advertise the address:port combination as this authority's
    preferred directory port in its certificate. If the address is a hostname,
    the hostname is resolved to an IP before it's published.

BUGS
----
This probably doesn't run on Windows. That's not a big issue, since we don't
really want authorities to be running on Windows anyway.

SEE ALSO
--------
**tor**(1) +

See also the "dir-spec.txt" file, distributed with Tor.