tor-gencert(1) Tor Manual tor-gencert(1)
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.
AUTHOR
Tor Project, Inc.
Author.
Tor 06/30/2025 tor-gencert(1)
tor 0.4.8.17 - Generated Fri Aug 22 15:19:57 CDT 2025