How to generate an RSA keypair on .NET core?

Question

I've recently started my first project in C#, and it's a big one. I'm creating a Minecraft server by reading the protocol and doing it all myself. I've come a long way, but now I need to generate an RSA key pair so I can encrypt and decrypt data on the socket.

I've created a new RSACryptoServiceProvider using new RSACryptoServiceProvider(2048), but when I go to export using ToXmlString(), it gives the following PlatformNotSupportedException error:

Is there any alternatives to read the public key of the RSA I just generated? I am using .NET Core 2.2 if that helps. Thanks!

[GitHub issue](https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/23686) — ProgrammingLlama, Sep 04 '19 at 00:22
@LexLi How is `RSA.Create` any different than how I was doing it? It seems to provide the same methods, with no real advantage. — Jacob Gunther, Sep 04 '19 at 01:12
@LexLi After looking through those docs, I realized that it is using the .NET standard, not .NET core. I don't have any `ExportRSAPublicKey()` methods on my RSA instance. — Jacob Gunther, Sep 04 '19 at 01:25

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

4

ToXmlString() is not supported in .Net Core 2.2, you can export your public and private keys in standard PEM format. Here is the sample code on stackoverflow : Exporting a private key Exporting a public key

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Sep 04 '19 at 05:42

Majid Kiani

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 04 '19 at 04:17

If you insist on using ToXmlString then you can install the 3.0 preview builds. (3.0 is supposed to finish being in preview and be done in the next couple of weeks, FWIW)

Alternatively, you can use the ExportParameters method and format the output structure into any encoding that you are capable of reading back in.

But you should definitely use RSA.Create and (unless actually doing interop with Windows CAPI) never use RSACryptoServiceProvider.

How to generate an RSA keypair on .NET core?

2 Answers2