Visual Basic 6.0

DSA Generate Key

See more DSA Examples

Generates a DSA public/private key pair and saves to PEM and DER file formats (both encrypted and non-encrypted).

An encrypted DSA PEM looks like this:

-----BEGIN DSA PRIVATE KEY-----
Proc-Type: 4,ENCRYPTED
DEK-Info: DES-EDE3-CBC,9DAFD5C4CD62A5D0

QwDdp66sB0qKXQli7FbVcKL/eo3wu7kGRlV2sI8XbkNa1RTLiwnwTWDB0dqyWRQ8
...
Bx0HVfxKiNgCbL6BQEnYD+GOmMcckuj9Uhgloe/YuXCIDJBGhjUt/li3hvR/PXeC

V2xxNl1XKBE88njqi+UXt4vjGVNLpvXM
-----END DSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Visual Basic 6.0

Dim success As Long
success = 0

' This example requires the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
' See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.

Dim dsa As New ChilkatDsa

' Call GenKey to generate a new DSA key.
' The number of bits should be at least 1024 and a multiple
' of 64.   Typical values are either 1024 or 2048.
' DSA key generation is compute intensive and may take
' a short while to complete.
success = dsa.GenKey(2048)
If (success <> 1) Then
    Debug.Print dsa.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

' Extract the private and public parts to PEM or DER format
' and save to files...
Dim pemStr As String
Dim xmlStr As String

' First for the public key...
' The public key never needs to be encrypted.

' Save the public key in PEM format:
pemStr = dsa.ToPublicPem()
' This example will not check the return value of SaveText...
success = dsa.SaveText(pemStr,"dsa_pub.pem")

' Save the public key in DER format:
success = dsa.ToPublicDerFile("dsa_pub.der")

Dim bPublicOnly As Long
bPublicOnly = 1
' Save to XML
xmlStr = dsa.ToXml(bPublicOnly)
success = dsa.SaveText(xmlStr,"dsa_pub.xml")

' ------------------------------------
' Now for the private key....
' ------------------------------------

' Unencrypted PEM:
pemStr = dsa.ToPem()
success = dsa.SaveText(pemStr,"dsa_priv.pem")

' Encrypted PEM:
pemStr = dsa.ToEncryptedPem("myPassword")
success = dsa.SaveText(pemStr,"dsa_privEncrypted.pem")

' DER:
success = dsa.ToDerFile("dsa_priv.der")

' XML:
bPublicOnly = 0
xmlStr = dsa.ToXml(bPublicOnly)
success = dsa.SaveText(xmlStr,"dsa_priv.xml")

Debug.Print "Finished!"