Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio
- Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio 2
- Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio Software
- Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio Free
- Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio Free
- Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio Code

THis link explained how to do it with Android Studio, but if I remember, it is pretty similar on Eclipse. Once you generate your keystore, keep it somewhere safe because you will need it to regenerate a new signed APK. How do I export a project in the Android studio? Keytool will quickly generate a public/private key pair and store them in a keystore for you after you answer a few simple questions. Keytool has a number of commands. The most common command used for signing Android builds -genkeypair, commonly abbreviated -genkey. The other commands may be useful to you, but uncommonly so. Generating a new SSH key and adding it to the ssh-agent. Click Generate new token. On the command line you would enter the following. Android Studio provides keyboard shortcuts for many common operations. Table 1 shows the default keyboard shortcuts by operating system. Note: In addition to the default key mappings in Table 1 below, you can choose from a variety of preset key mappings or create custom key mappings.
Hi,
Somehow I managed to save the wrong keystore for my Android app that I developed using Xamarin and already published.
When I wanted to upload an update to the Google Play Store with the keystore that I thought was the right keystore,
the SHA certificate did not match.
Luckily I was registered for Google Play App Signing so they were able to reset the Upload Key for me.
In order to reset the upload key I:
(dont know if i had to do this to generate new upload key) Generated a new archive and new keystore for the Android project in Xamarin and exported the APK to a folder. In that folder i ran the command lines in the next steps:
Generated a new upload key using the command line:
keytool -genkeypair -alias upload -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 9125 -keystore keystore.jksExported the certificate for that key to a *.pem file:
keytool -export -rfc -alias upload -file upload_certificate.pem -keystore keystore.jksSent the *.pem to Google Play Developer Support.**
Now that I have a *.pem file and *.jks file, how do I create the new APK file for my Xamarin Android project, signed with the new upload key in Visual Studio?
As a security measure, Android requires that apps be signed in order to be installed. Signing an app first requires creating keystores. A keystore is a storage mechanism for security certificates. A public key certificate is used to sign an APK before deployment to services like the Google Play Store. Signing the APK in this fashion allows Google to provide a high level of certainty that future updates to your APK of the same app come from you and not some malicious third party.
Considerations
There are some things you will need to consider before first deploying your Android app. Primary among these is the expected lifespan of your app. You will not be able to deploy the same app signed by another key at any point in the near future. Android, as well as Google Play, enforces the use of the same key for updates to an APK. If you need to sign your app with another key for any reason, you will have to deploy the app with a new package name. Any ratings your app had on Google Play will be lost. You will also lose touch with your user base unless you have notified them in some way to expect the existing app to be obsolete.
Creating keystores
After you have decided on an app’s lifespan, you’ll want to generate your keystore. Java includes a tool for just this purpose: keytool
. keytool
is located in your Java JDK installation and should be on your path for the purposes of this article. keytool
will quickly generate a public/private key pair and store them in a keystore for you after you answer a few simple questions.
Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio 2

keytool
has a number of commands. The most common command used for signing Android builds -genkeypair
, commonly abbreviated -genkey
. The other commands may be useful to you, but uncommonly so. Again, there are lots of options for this keytool
command. The primary -genkey
options we are concerned with are in the table below with a brief description:
-keystore | Filename of the generated keystore |
-alias | Keypair alias name |
-keyalg | Algorithm used to generate keypair |
-keysize | Keypair size, in bits |
-validity | Keypair validity duration, in days |
In other words, running the command
keytool -genkey -v -keystore release.keystore -alias example -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000
would result in a keystore file called release.keystore
which contained an RSA-2048 public/private keypair by the alias name of example
and validity of 10,000 days (more than 27 years).
Before running this command, you’ll want to decide on strong passwords for the keystore and key. You’ll need both of these passwords to sign an APK — they can be the same password if you’re into that kind of thing. The tool will also collect some metadata like your name and organization, but all of that is optional.
Related: Backgrounding Instead of Finishing the Root Activity on Android
Signing your APK
- Sign with Gradle
Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio Software
After running the command you’ll be the proud owner of a brand new Java Keystore. You probably want to set up your project to use the keystore to sign your APK, so let’s have a look at that.
If you’re using gradle to build your Android project, you will create a android.signingConfig
and associate it with one or more android.buildTypes
. The two passwords, keystore name, and alias name will all be needed in order to sign an APK. You can handle this in at least a few different ways. The simplest is to enter the relevant information directly into your gradle build script:
If you want to control access to the passwords you can move the information out of the build.gradle file and put it in your local environment or in a properties file to load at build time. To maintain security and control of the information, it’s likely that you would not want to check the keystore properties file into your source control.
Here is an example [from Google] of how to load the information from a file that would be located in your app’s root directory with the project level build.gradle file:
keystore.properties would contain (in this example):
Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio Free
If you prefer the environment variable method, create a script to add the variables to your environment and try something like this:
Key events that shaped each generation. There are some trade-offs to both of these methods. Figure out what works best for your organization’s methodology and use that one. For the environment variable method, for example, you have to load these variables into your environment somehow. This is less than ideal if you want to generate a signed APK with Android Studio.
Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio Free
- Sign manually
Command Line To Generate A New Key Android Studio Code
If you prefer to sign your APK manually instead of as part of the build process, you’ll want to use apksigner
, located at {ANDROID_SDK_DIRECTORY}/build-tools/{BUILD_TOOLS_VERSION}/apksigner
for build-tools revision 24.0.3 or higher. apksigner
uses the public/private key pair stored in your app’s keystore to generate a public key certificate. apksigner
then attaches that certificate to the APK. After this is accomplished, the APK is associated with that private key in a unique way. The Android gradle plugin will handle this for you if you configure your build.gradle file with all of the necessary information, as shown above.
You’ll want to zipalign
your APK, zipalign
will ensure that your app’s uncompressed data starts at a predictable offset inside the APK. zipalign
ed APKs are required to publish to the Google Play store.
After your APK is zipalign
ed, sign it using apksigner
:
You will be prompted at the command line to enter the password for your keystore.
If your keystore and key passwords differ, you’re in for a treat! Using the command above, you will be asked for the keystore password, but will not be asked for the key password. Entering either password results in exceptions and you won’t be having a good time. You’ll need to tell apksigner
that you want to specify each password individually. Apparently, this is supposed to be the default behavior, but it hasn’t worked for me. To force apksigner
to ask you for the keystore and key password independently, use the --ks-pass
and --key-pass
options. Following each option with stdin
will tell apksigner
to capture the password from you at the command line.
I hope this has educated you a bit more about how creating keystores and signing an Android APK works.