# How to inspect private keys and get general information

**URL:** <https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/how-to-inspect-private-keys-and-get-general-information/8438>\
**Category:** Kubo\
**Tags:** go-ipfs\
**Created:** [June 17, 2020, 8:44am UTC](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/how-to-inspect-private-keys-and-get-general-information/8438 "2020-06-17T08:44:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![finlaybweber](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/discuss.ipfs.tech/finlaybweber/32/5868_2.png) [@finlaybweber](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/u/finlaybweber)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 8:44am UTC](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/how-to-inspect-private-keys-and-get-general-information/8438/1 "2020-06-17T08:44:21Z")

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In go-ipfs I can generate a key-pair by running `ipfs key gen <name>` this will output what seems like a hash, and a file is added to `$IPFS_PATH/keystore`

The question now are:

1. When I create the key, I give a name/alias, but looking at the files in `keystore` it is not clear which files belong to which name/alias…How do I find this?
2. Also I could not read the file in keystore with openssl. How can one read the key files? In which format are they in?

Thanks for your help

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**Author:** ![hector](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/discuss.ipfs.tech/hector/32/178_2.png) [@hector](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/u/hector)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 1:27pm UTC](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/how-to-inspect-private-keys-and-get-general-information/8438/2 "2020-06-17T13:27:53Z")

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> [@finlaybweber](#):
>
> 1. When I create the key, I give a name/alias, but looking at the files in `keystore` it is not clear which files belong to which name/alias…How do I find this?

Key names are base32-encoded for the file names.

> [@finlaybweber](#):
>
> Also I could not read the file in keystore with openssl. How can one read the key files? In which format are they in?

Probably protobuf’ed per [https://github.com/libp2p/go-libp2p-core/blob/master/crypto/pb/crypto.proto](https://github.com/libp2p/go-libp2p-core/blob/master/crypto/pb/crypto.proto) .