makekey(8)						      System Manager's Manual							makekey(8)

NAME

       makekey - generate encryption key

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/lbin/makekey

DESCRIPTION

       The  command  improves  the usefulness of encryption schemes depending on a key by increasing the amount of time required to search the key
       space.  It reads 10 bytes from its standard input, and writes 13 bytes on its standard output.  The output depends on the input	in  a  way
       intended to be difficult to compute (that is, to require a substantial fraction of a second).

       The  first  eight input bytes (the "input key") can be arbitrary ASCII characters.  The last two (the salt) are best chosen from the set of
       digits, uppercase and lowercase letters, the period (.), and the slash (/).  The salt characters are repeated as the first  two	characters
       of the output.  The remaining 11 output characters are chosen from the same set as the salt and constitute the "output key".

       The  transformation  performed is essentially the following: the salt is used to select one of 4096 cryptographic machines all based on the
       National Bureau of Standards DES algorithm, but modified in 4096 different ways.  Using the input key as key, a constant string is fed into
       the machine and recirculated a number of times.	The 64 bits that come out are distributed into the 66 useful key bits in the result.

       The command is intended for programs that perform encryption (for instance, Usually input and output for are pipes.

RELATED INFORMATION

       Commands:  crypt(1), ed(1), ex(1), vi(1) delim off

																	makekey(8)