| IPSEC-ECDSASIGKEY(8) | Executable programs | IPSEC-ECDSASIGKEY(8) |
.SH "NAME" ipsec-ecdsasigkey - generate ECDSA signature key
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.HP 432u
ipsec ecdsasigkey
[--verbose]
[--nssdir directory] [--nsspw password]
[--seeddev device] [--seedbits bits]
[--hostname hostname]
[curvename]
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP ecdsasigkey generates an ECDSA public/private key pair, suitable
for digital signatures, on a named curve specified with curvename.
Currently it only accepts secp256r1, secp384r1, and
secp521r1.
.PP The public exponent is forced to the value 3, which has important
speed advantages for signature checking. Beware that the resulting keys have
known weaknesses as encryption keys and should not be used for that
purpose.
.PP The --verbose option makes ecdsasigkey give a running
commentary on standard error. By default, it works in silence until it is
ready to generate output.
.PP The --seeddev option specifies a source for random bits used to
seed the crypto library's RNG. The default is /dev/random (see
random(4)). FreeS/WAN and Openswan without NSS support used this
option to specify the random source used to directly create keys. Libreswan
only uses it to seed the NSS crypto libraries RNG. Under Linux with hardware
random support, special devices might show up as /dev/*rng* devices.
However, these should never be accessed directly using this option, as
hardware failures could lead to extremely non-random values (streams of
zeroes have been observed in the wild)
.PP The --seedbits option specifies how many seed bits are pulled from
the random device to seed the NSS PRNG. The default of 480bit comes from
FIPS requirements. Seed bits are rounded up to a multiple of 8.
.PP The use of a different random device or a reduction of seedbits from the
default value is prevented when the system is running in FIPS mode.
.PP The --nssdir option specifies the directory to use for the nss
database. This is the directory where the NSS certificate, key and security
modules databases reside. The default value is /var/lib/ipsec/nss.
.PP The --nsspw option specifies the nss cryptographic module
authentication password if the NSS module has been configured to require it.
A password is required by hardware tokens and also by the internal software
token module when configured to run in FIPS mode. If the argument is
/etc/ipsec.d/nsspassword, the password comes from that file;
otherwise argument is the password.
.SH "EXAMPLES"
.PP ipsec ecdsasigkey --verbose secp521r1
generates a secp521r1-based key and stores this key in the NSS database. The public key can then be extracted and edited into the ipsec.conf (see ipsec-showhostkey(8)).
.RE
.SH "FILES"
.PP /dev/random, /dev/urandom
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP random(4), rngd(8), ipsec-showhostkey(8), Applied
Cryptography, 2nd. ed., by Bruce Schneier, Wiley 1996, RFCs 2537,
2313, GNU MP, the GNU multiple precision arithmetic library, edition
2.0.2, by Torbj Granlund
.SH "HISTORY"
.PP Originally written for the Linux FreeS/WAN project
<https://www.freeswan.org> by Henry Spencer. Updated for the
Libreswan Project by Paul Wouters.
.PP The --round and --noopt options were obsoleted as these
were only used with the old non-library crypto code
.PP The --random device is only used for seeding the crypto library,
not for direct random to generate keys
.SH "BUGS"
.PP ecdsasigkey's run time is difficult to predict, since /dev/random
output can be arbitrarily delayed if the system's entropy pool is low on
randomness, and the time taken by the search for primes is also somewhat
unpredictable. Specifically, embedded systems and most virtual machines are
low on entropy. In such a situation, consider generating the ECDSA key on
another machine, and copying ipsec.secrets and the /var/lib/ipsec/nss
directory tree to the embedded platform. Note that NSS embeds the full path
in the DB files, so the path on proxy machine must be identical to the path
on the destination machine.
.SH "AUTHOR"
Andrew Cagney, Daiki Ueno, Daniel Kahn Gillmor, D. Hugh Redelmeier, Harald
Jenny, Jose Quaresma, Michael Richardson, Paul Wouters, Simon Deziel, Tuomo
Soini
| 10/06/2026 | Libreswan v5.4.1-HEAD |