1TOR-GENCERT(1)                    Tor Manual                    TOR-GENCERT(1)
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NAME

6       tor-gencert - Generate certs and keys for Tor directory authorities
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SYNOPSIS

9       tor-gencert [-h|--help] [-v] [-r|--reuse] [--create-identity-key] [-i
10       id_file] [-c cert_file] [-m num] [-a address:port]
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DESCRIPTION

13       tor-gencert generates certificates and private keys for use by Tor
14       directory authorities running the v3 Tor directory protocol, as used by
15       Tor 0.2.0 and later. If you are not running a directory authority, you
16       don’t need to use tor-gencert.
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18       Every directory authority has a long term authority identity key (which
19       is distinct from the identity key it uses as a Tor server); this key
20       should be kept offline in a secure location. It is used to certify
21       shorter-lived signing keys, which are kept online and used by the
22       directory authority to sign votes and consensus documents.
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24       After you use this program to generate a signing key and a certificate,
25       copy those files to the keys subdirectory of your Tor process, and send
26       Tor a SIGHUP signal. DO NOT COPY THE IDENTITY KEY.
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OPTIONS

29       -v
30           Display verbose output.
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32       -h or --help
33           Display help text and exit.
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35       -r or --reuse
36           Generate a new certificate, but not a new signing key. This can be
37           used to change the address or lifetime associated with a given key.
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39       --create-identity-key
40           Generate a new identity key. You should only use this option the
41           first time you run tor-gencert; in the future, you should use the
42           identity key that’s already there.
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44       -i FILENAME
45           Read the identity key from the specified file. If the file is not
46           present and --create-identity-key is provided, create the identity
47           key in the specified file. Default: "./authority_identity_key"
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49       -s FILENAME
50           Write the signing key to the specified file. Default:
51           "./authority_signing_key"
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53       -c FILENAME
54           Write the certificate to the specified file. Default:
55           "./authority_certificate"
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57       -m NUM
58           Number of months that the certificate should be valid. Default: 12.
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60       --passphrase-fd FILEDES
61           Filedescriptor to read the passphrase from. Ends at the first NUL
62           or newline. Default: read from the terminal.
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64       -a address:port
65           If provided, advertise the address:port combination as this
66           authority’s preferred directory port in its certificate. If the
67           address is a hostname, the hostname is resolved to an IP before
68           it’s published.
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BUGS

71       This probably doesn’t run on Windows. That’s not a big issue, since we
72       don’t really want authorities to be running on Windows anyway.
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SEE ALSO

75       tor(1)
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77       See also the "dir-spec.txt" file, distributed with Tor.
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AUTHOR

80       Tor Project, Inc.
81           Author.
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85Tor                               06/17/2022                    TOR-GENCERT(1)
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