How to create an account key using -n?

Question

How to create an account key using -n?

star26bsd opened this issue 8 years ago · comments

Hi! I am using 0.17 on OpenBSD 5.9-Stable. I have read that I need to create an account key first using -n. However, all attempts on using -n properly failed:

# letskencrypt -n                                                                                                               
usage: letskencrypt [-Fnrsv] [-C challengedir] [-c certdir] [-f accountkey] [-k domainkey] [-u user] domain [altnames...]
# letskencrypt -n my-domain.com
letskencrypt: /etc/ssl/letsencrypt/private/privkey.pem: -k file must exist

I have read the man page a dozen times and can't figure it out. thanks for your help.

Kristaps Dz · Answer 1 · Mon Jul 11 2016 15:42:16 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

The -n flag will create the account key, not the domain key. You need to create the domain key yourself, as now documented in the EXAMPLES section of letskencrypt.1. Does this clear that up? (And as noted in the other issue, do other clients create the domain key for you as well?)

star26bsd · Answer 2 · Mon Jul 11 2016 16:09:43 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Great, thank you. I had assumed the key creation is done by letskencrypt. However, it does make sense to create the private key manually, of course. The new EXAMPLES section shows this nicely. Thanks!

Kristaps Dz · Answer 3 · Tue Jul 12 2016 13:36:49 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

I've also added the -N flag to the latest version, which will create this for you.