How Are Signing Keys Generated
To sign an assembly with a strong name, you must have a public/private key pair. This public and private cryptographic key pair is used during compilation to create a strong-named assembly. You can create a key pair using the Strong Name tool (Sn.exe). Key pair files usually have an .snk extension.
Note
The signing script signtargetfilesapks works on the target files generated for a build. All the information on certificates and private keys used at build time is included in the target files. When running the signing script to sign for release, signing keys can be replaced based on key name or APK name. Generate Keys If a code signer does not yet have a suitable private key for signing the code, the key must first be generated, along with a corresponding public key that can be used by the code receiver's runtime system to verify the signature. Signing is producing a 'hash' with your private key that can be verified with your public key. The text is sent in the clear. Encrypting uses the receiver's public key to encrypt the data; decoding is done with their private key. So, the use of keys is not reversed (otherwise your private key wouldn't be private anymore!).
- Jul 08, 2009 You can also generate self signed SSL certificate for testing purpose. In this article, let us review how to generate private key file (server.key), certificate signing request file (server.csr) and webserver certificate file (server.crt) that can be used on Apache server with modssl. Key, CSR and CRT File Naming Convention.
- Oct 23, 2017 If you are not using the default automatically generated, self-signed token signing and token decryption certificates, you must renew and configure these certificates manually. First, you must obtain a new certificate from your certificate authority and import it into the local machine personal certificate store on each federation server.
In Visual Studio, the C# and Visual Basic project property pages include a Signing tab that enables you to select existing key files or to generate new key files without using Sn.exe. In Visual C++, you can specify the location of an existing key file in the Advanced property page in the Linker section of the Configuration Properties section of the Property Pages window. The use of the AssemblyKeyFileAttribute attribute to identify key file pairs was made obsolete beginning with Visual Studio 2005.
Create a key pair
To create a key pair, at a command prompt, type the following command:
sn –k <file name>
In this command, file name is the name of the output file containing the key pair.
/securecrt-70-license-key-generator.html. The following example creates a key pair called sgKey.snk.
If you intend to delay sign an assembly and you control the whole key pair (which is unlikely outside test scenarios), you can use the following commands to generate a key pair and then extract the public key from it into a separate file. First, create the key pair:
Next, extract the public key from the key pair and copy it to a separate file:
Once you create the key pair, you must put the file where the strong name signing tools can find it.
When signing an assembly with a strong name, the Assembly Linker (Al.exe) looks for the key file relative to the current directory and to the output directory. When using command-line compilers, you can simply copy the key to the current directory containing your code modules.
If you are using an earlier version of Visual Studio that does not have a Signing tab in the project properties, the recommended key file location is the project directory with the file attribute specified as follows: