2.5 hours.  And the file size ended up (just the private key, in PEM
format) 12603 bytes.

-Kyle H

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 3:00 PM, Satish Chandra
Kilaru<iam.kil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you. I was thinking the same. I thought a 5K buffer should be
> enough to store a 4K bit key in PEM format.
>
> I am curious to know how long it took for you to generate 16Kbit key.
>
> --Satish
>
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Kyle Hamilton<aerow...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> There is no upper limit on the size of an x.509 certificate file in
>> DER.  PEM takes DER and increases its size by 4/3.  So no, there is no
>> upper limit on the size of a PEM format certificate.
>>
>> Your private key is 4096 bits, or 512 bytes.  OpenSSL stores private
>> keys with their public counterparts (another 512 bytes), padding (1
>> byte for each part of it), exponent (usually 3 bytes), and the tag
>> required to identify it as a PrivateKeyInfo structure (about another 6
>> bytes all told, though I might be off on my count).  So, that's about
>> 1.1k.  PEM takes this and increases its size by 4/3, which means that
>> it'll be about 1380 encoded bytes.  Add the '-----BEGIN PRIVATE
>> KEY-----' and '-----END PRIVATE KEY-----', and that's another 50
>> bytes, for a total of 1420 bytes.  (If it's an encrypted private key,
>> it'll be a bit bigger.)  There is no upper bound per se, but a file
>> containing a private key shouldn't be larger than about 2048 bytes if
>> it uses any (currently-)reasonable keysize.
>>
>> That said, going through the motions with a 16384-byte key yields
>> about 4104 bytes, which in PEM would be about 5522 bytes (again,
>> larger if it's encrypted).  (I'm verifying these figures right now; I
>> figure it'll take about as long to generate a 16384-bit key today on
>> my Core2 Duo 2.16GHz as it did to generate a 1024-bit PGP key on a
>> 386DX 20MHz in 1995.)
>>
>> -Kyle H
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Satish Chandra
>> Kilaru<iam.kil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> HI All
>>>
>>> Is there be an upper limit on the size of a x509 certificate file in
>>> PEM format? Suppose that I am using 4096 bit key.
>>> Is there a way to calculate such length.
>>>
>>> Similarly is there an upper limit on the size of PEM format private
>>> key file? I am using 4096bit key.
>>>
>>> Thank you
>>> --Satish
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