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 file descriptor 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.
AUTHOR
Nick Mathewson
- Author.