@textile/hub > PrivateKey

PrivateKey class

Default implementation of the Private interface, with decryption support. In theory, RSA, ed25519, and secp256k1 key types (and more) should be supported, although currently only ed25519 has full sign and decrypt capabilities.

Signature:

export declare class PrivateKey implements Private 

Implements: Private

Example 1

Create a private key, extract the public key string

import { PrivateKey } from '@textile/hub'

function example() {
  const identity = PrivateKey.fromRandom()
  const publicKey = identity.public.toString()
  return publicKey
}

Example 2

Encrypt a message using another person's public key (string)

import { PublicKey } from '@textile/hub'

async function example(publicKey: string) {
  const recipient = PublicKey.fromString(publicKey)
  const msg = new TextEncoder().encode('howdy!')
  const ciphertext = await recipient.encrypt(msg)
  return ciphertext
}

Example 3

Decrypt a message sent to the local user with their private key

import { PrivateKey } from '@textile/hub'

async function example(identity: PrivateKey, ciphertext: Uint8Array) {
  const plaintext = await identity.decrypt(ciphertext)
  return plaintext
}

Example 4

Encrypt the local user's own message for later reading.

import { PrivateKey } from '@textile/hub'

async function example(identity: PrivateKey) {
  const msg = new TextEncoder().encode('private message!')
  const ciphertext = await identity.public.encrypt(msg)
  return ciphertext // can only be decrypted by the local user
}

Constructors

Constructor	Modifiers	Description
(constructor)(secretKey, type)		Constructor

Properties

Property	Modifiers	Type	Description
bytes		Uint8Array	Return the protobuf-encoded bytes of this private key.
privKey		Uint8Array	The raw private key bytes.
pubKey		Uint8Array	The raw public key bytes.
public		PublicKey	Get the public key associated with this identity.
seed		Uint8Array	The raw 32-byte secret seed
type		string

Methods

Method	Modifiers	Description
canSign()		Returns true if this key contains a secret key and can sign.
decrypt(ciphertext)		Decrypt the given ciphertext using this private key.
fromRandom()	static	Create a random PrivateKey.
fromRawEd25519Seed(rawSeed)	static	Creates a new PrivateKey from ed25519 secret key seed raw bytes.
fromString(str)	static	Create a PrivateKey from the result of calling toString().
sign(data)		Sign the message using this private key and return the signature.
toString()		Return the base32-encoded multibase string of the bytes of this private key. Useful for encoding the key for sharing etc.