tor/doc/tor-gencert.1

.TH tor-gencert 1 "" Jan-2008 ""
.\" manual page by Nick Mathewson
.SH NAME
.LP
tor-gencert \- Generate certs and keys for Tor directory authorities

.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBtor-gencert\fP\ [-h|--help] [-v] [-r|--reuse] [--create-identity-key] [-i \fIid_file\fP] [-c \fIcert_file\fP] [-m \fInum\fP] [-a \fIaddress\fP:\fIport\fP]

.SH DESCRIPTION
\fBtor-gencert\fR 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.
.PP
Every directory authority has a long term authority \fIidentity key\fP (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
\fIsigning keys\fP, which are kept online and used by the directory authority
to sign votes and consensus documents.
.PP
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.

.SH OPTIONS
\fB-v\fP
Display verbose output.
.LP
.TP
\fB-h\fP or \fB--help\fP
Display help text and exit.
.LP
.TP
\fB-r\fP or \fB--reuse\fP
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.
.LP
.TP
\fB--create-identity-key\fP
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.
.LP
.TP
\fB-i \fR\fIFILENAME\fP
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"
.LP
.TP
\fB-s \fR\fIFILENAME\fP
Write the signing key to the specified file.  Default:
"./authority_signing_key"
.LP
.TP
\fB-c \fR\fIFILENAME\fP
Write the certificate to the specified file.
Default: "./authority_certificate"
.LP
.TP
\fB-m \fR\fINUM\fP
Number of months that the certificate should be valid.  Default: 12.
.LP
.TP
\fB--passphrase-fd \fR\fIFILEDES\fP
Filedescriptor to read the file descriptor from.  Ends at the first
NUL or newline.  Default: read from the terminal.
.LP
.TP
\fB-a \fR\fIaddress\fR:\fIport\fP
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.

.SH 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.

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR tor (1)
.PP
See also the "dir-spec.txt" file, distributed with Tor.

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