This section describes the KeyPair and KeyPairGenerator Classes. The KeyPairGenerator.generateKeyPair() can be used to generate a private and public key pair.
java.security.KeyPair is a final class representing a key pair (a public key and a private key).
Major methods in the KeyPair class:
getPrivate() - Returns a PriviateKey object representing the private key in the key pair.
getPublic() - Returns a PublicKey object representing the public key in the key pair.
java.security.KeyPairGenerator is an abstract class providing a link to
implementation classes of private and public key pair generration algorithms
provided by various security package providers.
Major methods in the KeyPairGenerator class:
getInstance() - Returns a KeyPairGenerator object of the specified algorithm from
the implementation of the specified provider. If provider is not specified,
the default implementation is used. This is a static method.
initialize() - Initializes the key pair generator with the specified key size.
generateKeyPair() - Generates a key pair and returns a KeyPair object.
getAlgorithm() - Returns the algorithm name of the current key pair generator object.
getProvider() - Returns the provider as a provider object of the current key pair generator object.
See the next section for a sample program on how to use the java.security.KeyPairGenerator class.
