- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
- OPTIONS
- NOTES
- SUPPORTED CIPHERS
- EXAMPLES
- BUGS
- SEE ALSO
- HISTORY
- COPYRIGHT

# 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] [-skeyuri uri] [-storepass arg] [-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. This option is specified by prepending a hyphen to the cipher name (e.g., -aes-256-cbc), not as an argument to a `-cipher` flag. Use `openssl list -cipher-algorithms` to see the available ciphers.

-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 Superseded by the -pass argument.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[k]

  Set the buffer size for I/O. The maximum size that can be specified is 2^31-1 (2147483647) bytes. The k suffix can be specified to indicate that number is provided in kibibytes (multiples of 1024 bytes).

-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.

-skeyuri uri

  The URI identifying the symmetric key object to be used for encryption. This option can't be used together with any options implying raw key directly or indirectly. The -skeymgmt option is ignored. If both -skeyuri and -skeyopt options are provided, -skeyuri is ignored.

-storepass arg

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

-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).

# NOTES

The program can be called either as `openssl cipher` or `openssl enc -cipher`. Use the openssl-list(1) command to get a list of supported ciphers.

When the enc command lists supported ciphers, ciphers provided by providers, 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 provider 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 providers.

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.

    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), openssl-passphrase-options(1)

# 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 option was 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.

The -engine option was removed in OpenSSL 4.0.

The -skeyuri and -storepass options were added in OpenSSL 4.0.

# COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2000-2026 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.