astgenkey(8) - Linux man page

Name astgenkey - generates keys for for Asterisk IAX2 RSA authentication

Synopsis

astgenkey [ -q ] [ -n ] [ keyname ]

Description

astgenkey This script generates an RSA private and public key pair in PEM format for use by Asterisk. The private key should be kept a secret, as it can be used to fake your system's identity. Thus by default (without the option -n ) the script will create a passphrase-encrypted copy of your secret key: without entering the passphrase you won't be able to use it.

However if you want to use such a key with Asterisk, you'll have to start it interactively, because the scripts that start asterisk can't use that encrypted key.

The key is identified by a name. If you don't write the name on the command-line you'll be prompted for one. The outputs of the script are:

name.pub

The public key: not secret. Send this to the other side.

name.key

The private key: secret.

Those files should be copied to /usr/share/asterisk/keys

(The private key: on your system. The public key: on other systems)

To see the currently-installed keys from the asterisk CLI, use the command

show keys

Options

-q
Run quietly.

-n

Don't encrypt the private key.

Security

The keys are created, using the umask of the user running the command. To create the keys in a secure manner, you should check to ensure that your umask is first set to disallow the private key from being world- readable, such as with the following commands:

umask 0066

astgenkey yourkey

And then make the key accessible to Asterisk (assuming you run it as user "asterisk").

chown asterisk /usr/share/asterisk/keys/yourname.*

Files

/usr/share/asterisk/keys

See Also

asterisk(8), genrsa(1), rsa(1),

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+iax+rsa+auth

Author

This manual page was written by Tzafrir Cohen <tzafrir.cohen@xorcom.com> Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2.