On May 4, 2009, at 11:21 AM, Raimar Sandner wrote:

On Monday 04 May 2009 04:56:24 David Shaw wrote:

If you want a DSA2 key:

  gpg --enable-dsa2 --gen-key

Select option 1, and enter 3072 for the DSA key size.


If you want an RSA key:

 gpg --cert-digest-algo sha256 --gen-key

Select option 5.  Enter a RSA key size.  The default (2048) is fine.

Why do you recommend the DSA2 signing key to be larger than the RSA signing
key?

Heh. It's because of fussy internal parameter settings. DSA2 keys can use different hashes, and the hashes they use are tied to the key size. There is some looseness in the parameters, but in GPG it basically it boils down to this:

If the key is over 2048 bits, use a 256-bit hash.
If the key is over 1024 bits, use a 224-bit hash.
Otherwise, use a 160-bit hash.

I couldn't specify the DSA key to be 2048 bits long to match the RSA key because that would have given it a 224-bit hash instead of the promised 256-bit hash.

David


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