Howto: quickly generate 8K bit PGP keys ( GNUgpg )

Crafting  large keys on with GNUpgp could become problematic. It Definitely  requires more time

Here's a few means for crafting " random bytes" to speed up your PGP key generation. Smaller  PGP keys can be create in under 10-30secs on a modern PC, but  larger than 4Kb bits could take a considerable amount of time. It's not abnormal to see PGP keys that needs 4-10mins just for creation.


method#1:

A shell loop;


B=0

while [ $B -lt 10 ] ; do ls -lR ; done 

NOTE:  run the above in a  about 3 or more terminal windows on the same host


method#2:

Using unix "dd" command
;


dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/null bs=1k

method#3:

Using unix command find and find junk or random stuff.

A=0

while [ $A -lt 10 ] ; do find / -name " `echo $RANDOM`"  ; done



Now sit back, and drink a cup of cafe.

A  MacBook Air  w/1.3 Ghz I5  took approx 10mins to create a 8192bit pgp key where as a 1024bit key took less than 10secs.

Ken Felix
NSE ( network security expert) and Route/Switching Engineer
kfelix  -----a----t---- socpuppets ---dot---com

     ^      ^
=(  @  @ )=
         o 
        /  \