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New moduli may be generated with ssh-keygen1 using a two-step process. An initial candidate generation pass, using ssh-keygen -G calculates numbers that are likely to be useful. A second primality testing pass, using ssh-keygen -T provides a high degree of assurance that the numbers are prime and are safe for use in Diffie-Hellman operations by sshd(8). This format is used as the output from each pass.
The file consists of newline-separated records, one per modulus, containing seven space-separated fields. These fields are as follows:
Moduli candidates initially produced by ssh-keygen1 are Sophie Germain primes (type 4). Further primality testing with ssh-keygen1 produces safe prime moduli (type 2) that are ready for use in sshd(8). Other types are not used by OpenSSH.
The ssh-keygen1 moduli candidate generation uses the Sieve of Eratosthenes (flag 0x02). Subsequent ssh-keygen1 primality tests are Miller-Rabin tests (flag 0x04).
When performing Diffie-Hellman Group Exchange, sshd(8) first estimates the size of the modulus required to produce enough Diffie-Hellman output to sufficiently key the selected symmetric cipher. sshd(8) then randomly selects a modulus from Fa /etc/ssh/moduli that best meets the size requirement.