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.

AUTHORS

           Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>, Nick Mathewson <nickm@alum.mit.edu>.

AUTHOR

       Nick Mathewson
           Author.

Tor                                                11/22/2018                                     TOR-GENCERT(1)