OPENSSL-ENC(1)

NAME
openssl-enc - symmetric cipher routines

SYNOPSIS
openssl enc|cipher [-cipher] [-help] [-list] [-ciphers] [-in filename] [-out filename] [-pass arg] [-e] [-d] [-a] [-base64] [-A] [-k password] [-kfile filename] [-K key] [-iv IV] [-S salt] [-salt] [-nosalt] [-z] [-md digest] [-iter count] [-pbkdf2] [-saltlen size] [-p] [-P] [-bufsize number] [-nopad] [-v] [-debug] [-none] [-skeymgmt skeymgmt] [-skeyopt opt:value] [-engine id] [-rand files] [-writerand file] [-provider name] [-provider-path path] [-provparam [name:]key=value] [-propquery propq]

openssl cipher [...]

DESCRIPTION
The symmetric cipher commands allow data to be encrypted or decrypted using various block and stream ciphers using keys based on passwords or explicitly provided. Base64 encoding or decoding can also be performed either by itself or in addition to the encryption or decryption.

OPTIONS

-cipher
    The cipher to use.

-help
    Print out a usage message.

-list
    List all supported ciphers.

-ciphers
    Alias of -list to display all supported ciphers.

-in filename
    The input filename, standard input by default.

-out filename
    The output filename, standard output by default.

-pass arg
    The password source. For more information about the format of arg see openssl-passphrase-options(1).

-e  Encrypt the input data: this is the default.

-d  Decrypt the input data.

-a  Base64 process the data. This means that if encryption is taking place the data is base64 encoded after encryption. If decryption is set then the input data is base64 decoded before being decrypted.

    When the -A option not given, on encoding a newline is inserted after each 64 characters, and on decoding a newline is expected among the first 1024 bytes of input.

-base64
    Same as -a

-A  If the -a option is set then base64 encoding produces output without any newline character, and base64 decoding does not require any newlines. Therefore it can be helpful to use the -A option when decoding unknown input.

-k password
    The password to derive the key from. This is for compatibility with previous versions of OpenSSL. Superseded by the -pass argument.

-kfile filename
    Read the password to derive the key from the first line of filename. This is for compatibility with previous versions of OpenSSL. Superseded by the -pass argument.

-md digest
    Use the specified digest to create the key from the passphrase. The default algorithm is sha-256.

-iter count
    Use a given number of iterations on the password in deriving the encryption key. High values increase the time required to brute-force the resulting file. This option enables the use of PBKDF2 algorithm to derive the key.

-pbkdf2
    Use PBKDF2 algorithm with a default iteration count of 10000 unless otherwise specified by the -iter command line option.

-saltlen
    Set the salt length to use when using the -pbkdf2 option. For compatibility reasons, the default is 8 bytes. The maximum value is currently 16 bytes. If the -pbkdf2 option is not used, then this option is ignored and a fixed salt length of 8 is used. The salt length used when encrypting must also be used when decrypting.

-nosalt
    Don't use a salt in the key derivation routines. This option SHOULD NOT be used except for test purposes or compatibility with ancient versions of OpenSSL.

-salt
    Use salt (randomly generated or provide with -S option) when encrypting, this is the default.

-S salt
    The actual salt to use: this must be represented as a string of hex digits. If this option is used while encrypting, the same exact value will be needed again during decryption. This salt may be truncated or zero padded to match the salt length (See -saltlen).

-K key
    The actual key to use: this must be represented as a string comprised only of hex digits. If only the key is specified, the IV must additionally specified using the -iv option. When both a key and a password are specified, the key given with the -K option will be used and the IV generated from the password will be taken. It does not make much sense to specify both key and password.

-iv IV
    The actual IV to use: this must be represented as a string comprised only of hex digits. When only the key is specified using the -K option, the IV must explicitly be defined. When a password is being specified using one of the other options, the IV is generated from this password.

-p  Print out the key and IV used.

-P  Print out the key and IV used then immediately exit: don't do any encryption or decryption.

-bufsize number
    Set the buffer size for I/O.

-nopad
    Disable standard block padding.

-v  Verbose print; display some statistics about I/O and buffer sizes.

-debug
    Debug the BIOs used for I/O.

-z  Compress or decompress encrypted data using zlib after encryption or before decryption. This option exists only if OpenSSL was compiled with the zlib or zlib-dynamic option.

-none
    Use NULL cipher (no encryption or decryption of input).

-skeymgmt skeymgmt
    Some providers may support opaque symmetric keys objects. To use them, we need to know the name of the EVP_SKEYMGMT to be used. If not specified, the name of the cipher will be used.

    To find out the name of the suitable symmetric key management, please refer to the output of the "openssl list -skey-managers" command.

-skeyopt opt:value
    To obtain an existing opaque symmetric key or generate a new one, key options are specified as opt:value. These options can't be used together with any options implying raw key directly or indirectly.

-rand files, -writerand file
    See "Random State Options" in openssl(1) for details.

-provider name
-provider-path path
-provparam [name:]key=value
-propquery propq
    See "Provider Options" in openssl(1), provider(7), and property(7).

-engine id
    See "Engine Options" in openssl(1). This option is deprecated.

NOTES
The program can be called either as "openssl cipher" or "openssl enc -cipher". The first form doesn't work with engine-provided ciphers, because this form is processed before the configuration file is read and any ENGINEs loaded. Use the openssl-list(1) command to get a list of supported ciphers.

Engines which provide entirely new encryption algorithms (such as the ccgost engine which provides gost89 algorithm) should be configured in the configuration file. Engines specified on the command line using -engine option can only be used for hardware-assisted implementations of ciphers which are supported by the OpenSSL core or another engine specified in the configuration file.

When the enc command lists supported ciphers, ciphers provided by engines, specified in the configuration files are listed too.

A password will be prompted for to derive the key and IV if necessary.

The -salt option should ALWAYS be used if the key is being derived from a password unless you want compatibility with previous versions of OpenSSL.

Without the -salt option it is possible to perform efficient dictionary attacks on the password and to attack stream cipher encrypted data. The reason for this is that without the salt the same password always generates the same encryption key.

When the salt is generated at random (that means when encrypting using a passphrase without explicit salt given using -S option), the first bytes of the encrypted data are reserved to store the salt for later decrypting.

Some of the ciphers do not have large keys and others have security implications if not used correctly. A beginner is advised to just use a strong block cipher, such as AES, in CBC mode.

All the block ciphers normally use PKCS#7 padding, also known as standard block padding. This allows a rudimentary integrity or password check to be performed. However, since the chance of random data passing the test is better than 1 in 256 it isn't a very good test.

If padding is disabled then the input data must be a multiple of the cipher block length.

All RC2 ciphers have the same key and effective key length.

Blowfish and RC5 algorithms use a 128 bit key.

Please note that OpenSSL 3.0 changed the effect of the -S option. Any explicit salt value specified via this option is no longer prepended to the ciphertext when encrypting, and must again be explicitly provided when decrypting. Conversely, when the -S option is used during decryption, the ciphertext is expected to not have a prepended salt value.

When using OpenSSL 3.0 or later to decrypt data that was encrypted with an explicit salt under OpenSSL 1.1.1 do not use the -S option, the salt will then be read from the ciphertext. To generate ciphertext that can be decrypted with OpenSSL 1.1.1 do not use the -S option, the salt will be then be generated randomly and prepended to the output.

SUPPORTED CIPHERS
Note that some of these ciphers can be disabled at compile time and some are available only if an appropriate engine is configured in the configuration file. The output when invoking this command with the -list option (that is "openssl enc -list") is a list of ciphers, supported by your version of OpenSSL, including ones provided by configured engines.

This command does not support authenticated encryption modes like CCM and GCM, and will not support such modes in the future. This is due to having to begin streaming output (e.g., to standard output when -out is not used) before the authentication tag could be validated. When this command is used in a pipeline, the receiving end will not be able to roll back upon authentication failure. The AEAD modes currently in common use also suffer from catastrophic failure of confidentiality and/or integrity upon reuse of key/iv/nonce, and since openssl enc places the entire burden of key/iv/nonce management upon the user, the risk of exposing AEAD modes is too great to allow. These key/iv/nonce management issues also affect other modes currently exposed in this command, but the failure modes are less extreme in these cases, and the functionality cannot be removed with a stable release branch. For bulk encryption of data, whether using authenticated encryption modes or other modes, openssl-cms(1) is recommended, as it provides a standard data format and performs the needed key/iv/nonce management.

When enc is used with key wrapping modes the input data cannot be streamed, meaning it must be processed in a single pass. Consequently, the input data size must be less than the buffer size (-bufsize arg, default to 8*1024 bytes). The '*-wrap' ciphers require the input to be a multiple of 8 bytes long, because no padding is involved. The '*-wrap-pad' ciphers allow any input length. In both cases, no IV is needed. See example below.

 base64             Base 64

 bf-cbc             Blowfish in CBC mode
 bf                 Alias for bf-cbc
 blowfish           Alias for bf-cbc
 bf-cfb             Blowfish in CFB mode
 bf-ecb             Blowfish in ECB mode
 bf-ofb             Blowfish in OFB mode

 cast-cbc           CAST in CBC mode
 cast               Alias for cast-cbc
 cast5-cbc          CAST5 in CBC mode
 cast5-cfb          CAST5 in CFB mode
 cast5-ecb          CAST5 in ECB mode
 cast5-ofb          CAST5 in OFB mode

 chacha20           ChaCha20 algorithm

 des-cbc            DES in CBC mode
 des                Alias for des-cbc
 des-cfb            DES in CFB mode
 des-ofb            DES in OFB mode
 des-ecb            DES in ECB mode

 des-ede-cbc        Two key triple DES EDE in CBC mode
 des-ede            Two key triple DES EDE in ECB mode
 des-ede-cfb        Two key triple DES EDE in CFB mode
 des-ede-ofb        Two key triple DES EDE in OFB mode

 des-ede3-cbc       Three key triple DES EDE in CBC mode
 des-ede3           Three key triple DES EDE in ECB mode
 des3               Alias for des-ede3-cbc
 des-ede3-cfb       Three key triple DES EDE CFB mode
 des-ede3-ofb       Three key triple DES EDE in OFB mode

 desx               DESX algorithm.

 gost89             GOST 28147-89 in CFB mode (provided by ccgost engine)
 gost89-cnt         GOST 28147-89 in CNT mode (provided by ccgost engine)

 idea-cbc           IDEA algorithm in CBC mode
 idea               same as idea-cbc
 idea-cfb           IDEA in CFB mode
 idea-ecb           IDEA in ECB mode
 idea-ofb           IDEA in OFB mode

 rc2-cbc            128 bit RC2 in CBC mode
 rc2                Alias for rc2-cbc
 rc2-cfb            128 bit RC2 in CFB mode
 rc2-ecb            128 bit RC2 in ECB mode
 rc2-ofb            128 bit RC2 in OFB mode
 rc2-64-cbc         64 bit RC2 in CBC mode
 rc2-40-cbc         40 bit RC2 in CBC mode

 rc4                128 bit RC4
 rc4-64             64 bit RC4
 rc4-40             40 bit RC4

 rc5-cbc            RC5 cipher in CBC mode
 rc5                Alias for rc5-cbc
 rc5-cfb            RC5 cipher in CFB mode
 rc5-ecb            RC5 cipher in ECB mode
 rc5-ofb            RC5 cipher in OFB mode

 seed-cbc           SEED cipher in CBC mode
 seed               Alias for seed-cbc
 seed-cfb           SEED cipher in CFB mode
 seed-ecb           SEED cipher in ECB mode
 seed-ofb           SEED cipher in OFB mode

 sm4-cbc            SM4 cipher in CBC mode
 sm4                Alias for sm4-cbc
 sm4-cfb            SM4 cipher in CFB mode
 sm4-ctr            SM4 cipher in CTR mode
 sm4-ecb            SM4 cipher in ECB mode
 sm4-ofb            SM4 cipher in OFB mode

 aes-[128|192|256]-cbc  128/192/256 bit AES in CBC mode
 aes[128|192|256]       Alias for aes-[128|192|256]-cbc
 aes-[128|192|256]-cfb  128/192/256 bit AES in 128 bit CFB mode
 aes-[128|192|256]-cfb1 128/192/256 bit AES in 1 bit CFB mode
 aes-[128|192|256]-cfb8 128/192/256 bit AES in 8 bit CFB mode
 aes-[128|192|256]-ctr  128/192/256 bit AES in CTR mode
 aes-[128|192|256]-ecb  128/192/256 bit AES in ECB mode
 aes-[128|192|256]-ofb  128/192/256 bit AES in OFB mode

 aes-[128|192|256]-wrap     key wrapping using 128/192/256 bit AES
 aes-[128|192|256]-wrap-pad key wrapping with padding using 128/192/256 bit AES

 aria-[128|192|256]-cbc  128/192/256 bit ARIA in CBC mode
 aria[128|192|256]       Alias for aria-[128|192|256]-cbc
 aria-[128|192|256]-cfb  128/192/256 bit ARIA in 128 bit CFB mode
 aria-[128|192|256]-cfb1 128/192/256 bit ARIA in 1 bit CFB mode
 aria-[128|192|256]-cfb8 128/192/256 bit ARIA in 8 bit CFB mode
 aria-[128|192|256]-ctr  128/192/256 bit ARIA in CTR mode
 aria-[128|192|256]-ecb  128/192/256 bit ARIA in ECB mode
 aria-[128|192|256]-ofb  128/192/256 bit ARIA in OFB mode

 camellia-[128|192|256]-cbc  128/192/256 bit Camellia in CBC mode
 camellia[128|192|256]       Alias for camellia-[128|192|256]-cbc
 camellia-[128|192|256]-cfb  128/192/256 bit Camellia in 128 bit CFB mode
 camellia-[128|192|256]-cfb1 128/192/256 bit Camellia in 1 bit CFB mode
 camellia-[128|192|256]-cfb8 128/192/256 bit Camellia in 8 bit CFB mode
 camellia-[128|192|256]-ctr  128/192/256 bit Camellia in CTR mode
 camellia-[128|192|256]-ecb  128/192/256 bit Camellia in ECB mode
 camellia-[128|192|256]-ofb  128/192/256 bit Camellia in OFB mode

EXAMPLES
Just base64 encode a binary file:

 openssl base64 -in file.bin -out file.b64

Decode the same file

 openssl base64 -d -in file.b64 -out file.bin

Encrypt a file using AES-128 using a prompted password and PBKDF2 key derivation:

 openssl enc -aes128 -pbkdf2 -in file.txt -out file.aes128

Decrypt a file using a supplied password:

 openssl enc -aes128 -pbkdf2 -d -in file.aes128 -out file.txt \
    -pass pass:<password>

Encrypt a file then base64 encode it (so it can be sent via mail for example) using AES-256 in CTR mode and PBKDF2 key derivation:

 openssl enc -aes-256-ctr -pbkdf2 -a -in file.txt -out file.aes256

Base64 decode a file then decrypt it using a password supplied in a file:

 openssl enc -aes-256-ctr -pbkdf2 -d -a -in file.aes256 -out file.txt \
    -pass file:<passfile>

AES key wrapping:

 openssl enc -e -a -id-aes128-wrap-pad -K 000102030405060708090A0B0C0D0E0F -in file.bin
or
 openssl aes128-wrap-pad -e -a -K 000102030405060708090A0B0C0D0E0F -in file.bin

BUGS
The -A option when used with large files doesn't work properly. On the other hand, when base64 decoding without the -A option, if the first 1024 bytes of input do not include a newline character the first two lines of input are ignored.

The openssl enc command only supports a fixed number of algorithms with certain parameters. So if, for example, you want to use RC2 with a 76 bit key or RC4 with an 84 bit key you can't use this program.

SEE ALSO
openssl-list(1), EVP_SKEY(3)

HISTORY
The default digest was changed from MD5 to SHA256 in OpenSSL 1.1.0.

The -list option was added in OpenSSL 1.1.1e.

The -ciphers and -engine options were deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0.

The -saltlen option was added in OpenSSL 3.2.

The -skeymgmt and -skeyopt options were added in OpenSSL 3.5.

COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2000-2025 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>.