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BN_generate_prime(3)                               OpenSSL                              BN_generate_prime(3)



NAME
       BN_generate_prime, BN_is_prime, BN_is_prime_fasttest - generate primes and test for primality

SYNOPSIS
        #include <openssl/bn.h>

        BIGNUM *BN_generate_prime(BIGNUM *ret, int num, int safe, BIGNUM *add,
            BIGNUM *rem, void (*callback)(int, int, void *), void *cb_arg);

        int BN_is_prime(const BIGNUM *a, int checks, void (*callback)(int, int,
            void *), BN_CTX *ctx, void *cb_arg);

        int BN_is_prime_fasttest(const BIGNUM *a, int checks,
            void (*callback)(int, int, void *), BN_CTX *ctx, void *cb_arg,
            int do_trial_division);

DESCRIPTION
       BN_generate_prime() generates a pseudo-random prime number of num bits.  If ret is not NULL, it will
       be used to store the number.

       If callback is not NULL, it is called as follows:

          callback(0, i, cb_arg) is called after generating the i-th potential prime number.

          While the number is being tested for primality, callback(1, j, cb_arg) is called as described
           below.

          When a prime has been found, callback(2, i, cb_arg) is called.

       The prime may have to fulfill additional requirements for use in Diffie-Hellman key exchange:

       If add is not NULL, the prime will fulfill the condition p % add == rem (p % add == 1 if rem == NULL)
       in order to suit a given generator.

       If safe is true, it will be a safe prime (i.e. a prime p so that (p-1)/2 is also prime).

       The PRNG must be seeded prior to calling BN_generate_prime().  The prime number generation has a
       negligible error probability.

       BN_is_prime() and BN_is_prime_fasttest() test if the number a is prime.  The following tests are
       performed until one of them shows that a is composite; if a passes all these tests, it is considered
       prime.

       BN_is_prime_fasttest(), when called with do_trial_division == 1, first attempts trial division by a
       number of small primes; if no divisors are found by this test and callback is not NULL, callback(1,
       -1, cb_arg) is called.  If do_trial_division == 0, this test is skipped.

       Both BN_is_prime() and BN_is_prime_fasttest() perform a Miller-Rabin probabilistic primality test
       with checks iterations. If checks == BN_prime_checks, a number of iterations is used that yields a
       false positive rate of at most 2^-80 for random input.

       If callback is not NULL, callback(1, j, cb_arg) is called after the j-th iteration (j = 0, 1, ...).
       ctx is a pre-allocated BN_CTX (to save the overhead of allocating and freeing the structure in a
       loop), or NULL.

RETURN VALUES
       BN_generate_prime() returns the prime number on success, NULL otherwise.

       BN_is_prime() returns 0 if the number is composite, 1 if it is prime with an error probability of
       less than 0.25^checks, and -1 on error.

       The error codes can be obtained by ERR_get_error(3).

SEE ALSO
       bn(3), ERR_get_error(3), rand(3)

HISTORY
       The cb_arg arguments to BN_generate_prime() and to BN_is_prime() were added in SSLeay 0.9.0. The ret
       argument to BN_generate_prime() was added in SSLeay 0.9.1.  BN_is_prime_fasttest() was added in
       OpenSSL 0.9.5.



0.9.8                                            2009-04-03                             BN_generate_prime(3)