EVP_PKEY_DERIVE(3ossl)

📦 version 3.5.0, in opensuse-leap 16.0

Okay so welcome to the OpenSSL EVP_PKEY_DERIVE(3ossl) page, bestie. This is the whole shared-secret derivation situation, and it's lowkey iconic. Let's get into it 💖

✨ NAME ✨

The whole squad on this page is:

  • EVP_PKEY_derive_init
  • EVP_PKEY_derive_init_ex
  • EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer_ex
  • EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer
  • EVP_PKEY_derive

— and their whole job is to derive a public key algorithm shared secret. Slay. 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <openssl/evp.h>

int EVP_PKEY_derive_init(EVP_PKEY_CTX *ctx);
int EVP_PKEY_derive_init_ex(EVP_PKEY_CTX *ctx, const OSSL_PARAM params[]);
int EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer_ex(EVP_PKEY_CTX *ctx, EVP_PKEY *peer,
                                int validate_peer);
int EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer(EVP_PKEY_CTX *ctx, EVP_PKEY *peer);
int EVP_PKEY_derive(EVP_PKEY_CTX *ctx, unsigned char *key, size_t *keylen);

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Okay so here's the tea, function by function:

  • EVP_PKEY_derive_init() initializes a public key algorithm context ctx for shared secret derivation using the algorithm given when the context was created using EVP_PKEY_CTX_new(3) or variants thereof. The algorithm is used to fetch a EVP_KEYEXCH method implicitly — see "Implicit fetch" in provider(7) for more information about implicit fetches.
  • EVP_PKEY_derive_init_ex() is the same as EVP_PKEY_derive_init() but additionally sets the passed parameters params on the context before returning. Extra setup, same vibe ✨
  • EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer_ex() sets the peer key: this will normally be a public key. The validate_peer will validate the public key if this value is non zero.
  • EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer() is similar to EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer_ex() with validate_peer set to 1.
  • EVP_PKEY_derive() derives a shared secret using ctx. If key is NULL then the maximum size of the output buffer is written to the keylen parameter. If key is not NULL then before the call the keylen parameter should contain the length of the key buffer, if the call is successful the shared secret is written to key and the amount of data written to keylen.

🫶 NOTES 🫶

  • After the call to EVP_PKEY_derive_init(), algorithm specific control operations can be performed to set any appropriate parameters for the operation.
  • The function EVP_PKEY_derive() can be called more than once on the same context if several operations are performed using the same parameters. Reuse era 💅

🎀 RETURN VALUES 🎀

EVP_PKEY_derive_init() and EVP_PKEY_derive() return 1 for success and 0 or a negative value for failure. In particular a return value of -2 indicates the operation is not supported by the public key algorithm.

🦋 EXAMPLES 🦋

Derive shared secret (for example DH or EC keys):

#include <openssl/evp.h>
#include <openssl/rsa.h>

EVP_PKEY_CTX *ctx;
ENGINE *eng;
unsigned char *skey;
size_t skeylen;
EVP_PKEY *pkey, *peerkey;
/* NB: assumes pkey, eng, peerkey have been already set up */

ctx = EVP_PKEY_CTX_new(pkey, eng);
if (!ctx)
    /* Error occurred */
if (EVP_PKEY_derive_init(ctx) <= 0)
    /* Error */
if (EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer(ctx, peerkey) <= 0)
    /* Error */

/* Determine buffer length */
if (EVP_PKEY_derive(ctx, NULL, &skeylen) <= 0)
    /* Error */

skey = OPENSSL_malloc(skeylen);

if (!skey)
    /* malloc failure */

if (EVP_PKEY_derive(ctx, skey, &skeylen) <= 0)
    /* Error */

/* Shared secret is skey bytes written to buffer skey */

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

💅 HISTORY 💅

  • The EVP_PKEY_derive_init(), EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer() and EVP_PKEY_derive() functions were originally added in OpenSSL 1.0.0.
  • The EVP_PKEY_derive_init_ex() and EVP_PKEY_derive_set_peer_ex() functions were added in OpenSSL 3.0.

Copyright 2006-2022 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You can obtain a copy in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at <https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.

OpenSSL 3.5.0 · 2026-09-25 — byeee bestie, go derive something iconic 💖✨

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