Generate Ethereum Private key, Public key, and Address using Bash and OpenSSL

ethereum_keys.sh

# Generate the private and public keys
openssl ecparam -name secp256k1 -genkey -noout | openssl ec -text -noout > key

# Extract the public key and remove the EC prefix 0x04
cat key | grep pub -A 5 | tail -n +2 | tr -d '\n[:space:]:' | sed 's/^04//' > pub

# Extract the private key and remove the leading zero byte
cat key | grep priv -A 3 | tail -n +2 | tr -d '\n[:space:]:' | sed 's/^00//' > priv

# Generate the hash and take the address part
cat pub | keccak-256sum -x -l | tr -d ' -' | tail -c 41 > address

# (Optional) import the private key to geth
geth account import priv

Hi

Hello, How to create eth private key from eth wallet address or public key?

@navdissenyo it's not possible to reconstruct a private key from the public key or address because they are generated using a one-way function.

you can replace keccak-256sum -x -l with the commonly builtin sha256sum

you can replace keccak-256sum -x -l with the commonly builtin sha256sum

@lau-bin you cannot really substitute one for another. Because of the slight differences in how each digest algorithm works, this results in a different hash.

Ubuntu:

cat pub | keccak-256sum -x -l | tr -d ' -' | tail -c 41 > address
keccak-256sum: command not found

@miguelmota Thanks for putting this together. I implemented this for people to use in 1 line if they have NixOS or the Nix package manager installed:

nix run \
  github:realfolk/nix?dir=lib/packages/generate-ethereum-account \
  PATH_TO_STORE_PUBLIC_KEY \
  PATH_TO_STORE_PRIVATE_KEY

Create address with checksum (EIP 55): 0xcf8e7afab9576f3bd85885065aecd479d35f4d70 -> 0xCf8e7aFAB9576F3Bd85885065aeCD479D35F4d70

address=$(cat address)
hash=$(echo -n "$address" | keccak-256sum | tr -d ' -')

checksum_address=""
for i in $(seq 0 39); do
    char="${address:$i:1}"
    hash_char="${hash:$i:1}"
    if [[ "$char" =~ [0-9] ]]; then
        checksum_address+="$char"
    elif (( 0x$hash_char >= 8 )); then
        checksum_address+="${char^^}"
    else
        checksum_address+="$char"
    fi
done

Lost my Trc20 private key how to recover it ??

To install keccak-256sum:

wget -qO- https://codeberg.org/maandree/libkeccak/archive/1.3.1.2.tar.gz | tar xz
cd libkeccak
make
sudo make install

cd ..
wget -qO- wget https://codeberg.org/maandree/sha3sum/archive/1.2.2.tar.gz | tar xz
cd sha3sum
make
sudo make install