ssh-keygen generator 3 broken

Sean sean at highsec.org
Sun Dec 24 06:52:23 AEDT 2023


Hello, I was re-generating the moduli for SSH, and during that process I noticed that, when running the following command:

ssh-keygen -M screen -O prime-tests=600 -O generator=3 -f moduli-2048-01.candidates moduli-2048-01c


It does not produce any errors, only the following:
ebug2:    1467763: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467763: generator 0 != 3 
debug2:    1467764: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467764: generator 2 != 3 
debug2:    1467765: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467765: generator 5 != 3 
debug2:    1467766: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467766: generator 0 != 3 
debug2:    1467767: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467767: generator 0 != 3 
debug2:    1467768: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467768: generator 5 != 3 
debug2:    1467769: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467769: generator 2 != 3 
debug2:    1467770: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467770: generator 5 != 3 
debug2:    1467771: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467771: generator 2 != 3 
debug2:    1467772: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467772: generator 2 != 3 
debug2:    1467773: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467773: generator 5 != 3 
debug2:    1467774: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467774: generator 0 != 3 
debug2:    1467775: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467775: generator 0 != 3 
debug2:    1467776: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467776: generator 5 != 3 
debug2:    1467777: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467777: generator 5 != 3 
debug2:    1467778: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467778: generator 2 != 3 
debug2:    1467779: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467779: generator 2 != 3 
debug2:    1467780: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467780: generator 0 != 3 
debug2:    1467781: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467781: generator 0 != 3 
debug2:    1467782: (4) Sophie-Germain 
debug2:    1467782: generator 2 != 3
  Found 0 safe primes of 0 candidates in 15 seconds
 


it always results in 0 file size. I had no issues using generator 2 and generator 5. So for some reason, there only seem to be generators 2 and 5, while that seems to check for generator 0, but if you try to use that in the command, it produces the error:



Generator invalid: 0 (too small)







even though the documentation lists:



By default, each candidate will be subjected to 100 primality tests.  This may be overridden using the -O prime-tests option.  The DH generator value will be chosen automatically for the prime under consideration.  If a specific generator is desired, it may be requested using the -O generator option.  Valid generator values are 2, 3, and 5.


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