Generate Strong Name Key File

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  1. Generate Key From Crt File
  2. Generate Strong Name Key File

To sign an assembly with a strong name, you must have a public/private key pair. This public and private cryptographic key pair is used during compilation to create a strong-named assembly. You can create a key pair using the Strong Name tool (Sn.exe). Key pair files usually have an .snk extension.

  • Create and use strong-named assemblies.; 3 minutes to read; In this article. A strong name consists of the assembly's identity—its simple text name, version number, and culture information (if provided)—plus a public key and a digital signature.
  • It can be generated using developer tools like visual studio command prompt from an assembly file. The strong names are unique (and yeah it must be). By creating an assembly with strong names you can make sure that the name is globally unique. You can find some more information about strong names here.

Note

In Visual Studio, the C# and Visual Basic project property pages include a Signing tab that enables you to select existing key files or to generate new key files without using Sn.exe. In Visual C++, you can specify the location of an existing key file in the Advanced property page in the Linker section of the Configuration Properties section of the Property Pages window. The use of the AssemblyKeyFileAttribute attribute to identify key file pairs was made obsolete beginning with Visual Studio 2005.

Create a key pair

Apr 24, 2006 v2.0 of the.NET Framework deprecated the use of the AssemblyKeyFileAttribute and AssemblyKeyContainerAttribute. Often times, these attributes were used to share a common key file across several projects. If you try to share key files using the Visual Studio 2005 function on the signing property page, you’ll find that the key file is. Mar 11, 2015  Creating an snk for signing your assemblies with Visual Studio Published by Lucas on March 11, 2015 There are a number of reasons you may (or may not) want to sign your assemblies, but if you do, here is a simple way of doing it in Visual Studio.

To create a key pair, at a command prompt, type the following command:

sn –k <file name>

In this command, file name is the name of the output file containing the key pair.

The following example creates a key pair called sgKey.snk.

If you intend to delay sign an assembly and you control the whole key pair (which is unlikely outside test scenarios), you can use the following commands to generate a key pair and then extract the public key from it into a separate file. First, create the key pair:

Next, extract the public key from the key pair and copy it to a separate file:

Once you create the key pair, you must put the file where the strong name signing tools can find it.

When signing an assembly with a strong name, the Assembly Linker (Al.exe) looks for the key file relative to the current directory and to the output directory. When using command-line compilers, you can simply copy the key to the current directory containing your code modules.

If you are using an earlier version of Visual Studio that does not have a Signing tab in the project properties, the recommended key file location is the project directory with the file attribute specified as follows:

Generate strong name key file software

See also

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In the process of deploying a BizTalk solution, Visual Studio first builds the assemblies. The deployment process requires that each assembly is strongly signed. You can strongly sign your assemblies by associating the project with a strong name assembly key file. If you haven't already done so, before deploying a solution from Visual Studio, use the following procedure to generate a strong name assembly key file and assign it to each project in the solution.

Prerequisites

Generate Key From Crt File

To perform the procedure in this topic, you must be logged on with an account that is a member of the BizTalk Server Administrator's group. In addition, your account must have Write permissions on the global assembly cache (GAC). The Administrators account on the local computer has this permission.

To configure a strong name assembly key file

  1. Generate open ssh key online. Start Visual Studio Command Prompt.

  2. At the command prompt, from the folder where you want to store the key file, type the following command, and then press ENTER: Fable 3 cd key generator chomikuj.

    sn /kfile_name.snk

    Example: sn /k ErrorHandling.snk

    A confirmation message, Key pair written to <file_name>.snk, displays on the command line.

  3. In Visual Studio Solution Explorer, right-click the project and then click Properties.

  4. Click the Signing tab and choose Browse in the Choose a strong name key file drop down box.

  5. Browse to the key file and click it. Click Open, and then close the project properties.

  6. Repeat steps 3 through 6 for each project in the solution that you want to deploy using this strong name assembly key file.

Generate Strong Name Key File

See Also