opensolaris man page for makekey

makekey(1)							   User Commands							makekey(1)

NAME
       makekey - generate encryption key

SYNOPSIS
       /usr/lib/makekey

DESCRIPTION
       makekey	improves  the  usefulness  of  encryption schemes that depend on a key by increasing the amount of time required to search the key
       space. It attempts to read 8 bytes for its key (the first eight input bytes), then it attempts to read 2 bytes for its salt (the  last  two
       input bytes). 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 dig-
       its, ., /, upper- and lower-case letters. The salt characters are repeated as the first two characters of the output. The remaining 11 out-
       put 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 4,096 cryptographic machines all based on the
       National  Bureau  of Standards DES algorithm, but broken in 4,096 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 output key bits in the result.

       makekey is intended for programs that perform encryption. Usually, its input and output will be pipes.

SEE ALSO
       ed(1), vi(1), passwd(4)

NOTES
       makekey can produce different results depending upon whether the input is typed at the terminal or redirected from a file.

SunOS 5.11							    3 Mar 2008								makekey(1)