AES Key

[hackalive]

Hi Guys,

 

I need to generate an AES file key (CBC/PKCS7/256bit) using PHP and then obviously need to store the key.

 

The second phase is to encrypt a string using the key generated and stored above, however for the moment its the key generation that is the issue.

 

My first thought was to use OpenSSL as it is a library that can be added to any Apache installation.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Cheers in advance.

Edited December 28, 2013 by hackalive

[trq]

What exactly is the issue?

 

Maybe your looking for the openssl php extension?

 

http://php.net/openssl

[hackalive]

What exactly is the issue?

 

Maybe your looking for the openssl php extension?

 

http://php.net/openssl

 

The issue is I can't seem to find how to create a AES (CBC/PKCS7/256bit) key.

 

I'm open to OpenSSL and mcrypt - although from what I can tell OpenSSL is better?

 

They keys need to be compatible with Microsoft's CryptoAPI (and I believe OpenSSL is).

[kicken]

If you look at the manual page given to you, you might have noticed this function:

openssl_pkey_new - Generates a new private key

 

Use that to generate your new key. See the manual page for the specific details on how it works.

[hackalive]

If you look at the manual page given to you, you might have noticed this function:

openssl_pkey_new - Generates a new private key

 

Use that to generate your new key. See the manual page for the specific details on how it works.

 

Thanks for that, however I can't see how to specify CBC/PKC7.

 

I believe private_key_bits would = 256bit (Key Size)?

[kicken]

So after taking a few minutes to actually read a bit on the subject of AES, it would seem that the key is nothing more than a random string with a certain byte length. As such to generate your key you just need to generate a random string. The openssl function for this would be openssl_random_pseudo_bytes. If you then want to encrypt some data using your newly generated key you would use openssl_encrypt. You'll also need to generate an IV of the same size as your key string and pass that along with the key during encryption or decryption.