encode_keychange(1)

encode_keychange1

Produce the keychange string for snmpv3

Usage

encode_keychange {-t md5 | sha1 [OPTIONS]}

Overview

encode_keychange produces a KeyChange string using the old and new passphrases as described in Section 5 of RFC 2274 "User-based Security Model (USM) for version 3 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv3)". -t option is mandatory and specifies the hash transform type to use.

The transform is used to convert passphrase to master key for a given user (Ku), convert master key to the localized key (Kul), and to hash the old Kul with the random bits.

Passphrases are obtained by examining a number of sources until success (in order listed):

command line options (see -N and -O options below);

the file $HOME/.snmp/passphrase.ek which should only contain two lines with old and new passphrase;

standard input -or- user input from the terminal.

Options

-E [0x]<engineID> EngineID used for Kul generation.

<engineID> is interpreted as a hex string when preceded by 0x, otherwise it is treated as a text string. If no <engineID> is specified, it is constructed from the first IP address for the local host.

-f

Force passphrases to be read from standard input.

-h

Display the help message.

-N "<new_passphrase>"

Passphrase used to generate the new Ku.

-O "<old_passphrase>"

Passphrase used to generate the old Ku.

-P

Turn off the prompt for passphrases when getting data from standard input.

-v

Be verbose.

-V

Echo passphrases to terminal.

Releases

12 releases since Debian 3.1 (Sarge); the text changed 8 times.

  1. 3.1–4.0
  2. 5.0
  3. 6.0–7
  4. 8
  5. 9–10
  6. 11
  7. 12
  8. 13
  9. Arch

From net-snmp 5.9.5.2-2 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.