KeyPair and KeyPairGenerator Classes

This section describes the KeyPair and KeyPairGenerator Classes. The KeyPairGenerator.generateKeyPair() can be used to generate a private and public key pair.

java.security.KeyPair is a final class representing a key pair (a public key and a private key). Major methods in the KeyPair class:

getPrivate() - Returns a PrivateKey object representing the private key in the key pair.

getPublic() - Returns a PublicKey object representing the public key in the key pair.

java.security.KeyPairGenerator is an abstract class providing a link to implementation classes of private and public key pair generation algorithms provided by various security package providers. Major methods in the KeyPairGenerator class:

getInstance() - Returns a KeyPairGenerator object of the specified algorithm from the implementation of the specified provider. If provider is not specified, the default implementation is used. This is a static method.

initialize() - Initializes the key pair generator with the specified key size.

generateKeyPair() - Generates a key pair and returns a KeyPair object.

getAlgorithm() - Returns the algorithm name of the current key pair generator object.

getProvider() - Returns the provider as a provider object of the current key pair generator object.

See the next section for a sample program on how to use the java.security.KeyPairGenerator class.

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Private key and Public Key Pair Generation

 Private and Public Keys and Related Interfaces

KeyPair and KeyPairGenerator Classes

 Key Pair Sample Program - JcaKeyPair.java

 DSA Private Key and Public Key Pair Sample

 RSA Private Key and Public Key Pair Sample

 DiffieHellman Private Key and Public Key Pair Sample

 PKCS#8/X.509 Private/Public Encoding Standards

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 Outdated Tutorials

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