Java Cryptography - KeyPairGenerator

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Java provides the KeyPairGenerator class. This class is used to generate pairs of public and private keys. To generate keys using the KeyPairGenerator class, follow the steps given below.

Step 1: Create a KeyPairGenerator object

The KeyPairGenerator class provides getInstance() method which accepts a String variable representing the required key-generating algorithm and returns a KeyPairGenerator object that generates keys.

Create KeyPairGenerator object using the getInstance() method as shown below.

//Creating KeyPair generator object
KeyPairGenerator keyPairGen = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("DSA");

Step 2: Initialize the KeyPairGenerator object

The KeyPairGenerator class provides a method named initialize() this method is used to initialize the key pair generator. This method accepts an integer value representing the key size.

Initialize the KeyPairGenerator object created in the previous step using this method as shown below.

//Initializing the KeyPairGenerator
keyPairGen.initialize(2048);

Step 3: Generate the KeyPairGenerator

You can generate the KeyPair using the generateKeyPair() method of the KeyPairGenerator class. Generate the key pair using this method as shown below.

//Generate the pair of keys
KeyPair pair = keyPairGen.generateKeyPair();

Step 4: Get the private key/public key

You can get the private key from the generated KeyPair object using the getPrivate() method as shown below.

//Getting the private key from the key pair
PrivateKey privKey = pair.getPrivate();

You can get the public key from the generated KeyPair object using the getPublic() method as shown below.

//Getting the public key from the key pair
PublicKey publicKey = pair.getPublic();

Example

Following example demonstrates the key generation of the secret key using the KeyPairGenerator class of the javax.crypto package.

import java.security.KeyPair;
import java.security.KeyPairGenerator;
import java.security.PrivateKey;
import java.security.PublicKey;

public class KeyPairGenertor {
   public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception{
      //Creating KeyPair generator object
      KeyPairGenerator keyPairGen = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("DSA");
      
      //Initializing the KeyPairGenerator
      keyPairGen.initialize(2048);
      
      //Generating the pair of keys
      KeyPair pair = keyPairGen.generateKeyPair();
      
      //Getting the private key from the key pair
      PrivateKey privKey = pair.getPrivate();   
      
      //Getting the public key from the key pair
      PublicKey publicKey = pair.getPublic(); 
      System.out.println("Keys generated");
   }
}

Output

The above program generates the following output −

Keys generated