# Securing the public and the private keys of your engine

Store the public and the private keys of an engine in a secure way to restrict the access to them.

Remote Engine generates its own key pair (RSA/4096 bits) during the pairing process. With Talend Remote Engine v2.12.5 onwards, this key pair is stored in a Java keystore in etc/keystores, secured with a password defined in a dedicated configuration file or as an environment variable.

If no password is defined, a random value is generated instead to ensure that the private key is still stored encrypted at rest.

Information noteNote: This pair of keys is used to protect the information transferred between Talend Remote Engine and Talend Management Console.

## Before you begin

* You have installed Talend Remote Engine.
* Your engine version is 2.12.5 onwards.

## About this task

Do the following to define your own password to encrypt and secure the access to the keystore.

## Procedure

1. Stop your engine if it is running.
2. Unpair your engine if it is already paired.
3. Remove the previously generated keys and keystores from <RE\_installation>/etc/keystores.
4. In the <RE\_installation>/etc/org.talend.ipaas.rt.keypair.manager.cfg file, ensure that the following lines present and enter your password:
   ```
   # whether to use secured keystore for key-pair
   keypair.use.keystore=true

   # keystore type: PKCS12 or JCEKS
   keypair.keystore.type=PKCS12

   # Password used to encrypt keystore. Do not change it after key-pair was generated!
   keypair.keystore.password=${env:ORG_TALEND_IPAAS_RT_KEYPAIR_MANAGER_KEYPAIR_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD}
   ```
   * Either directly enter the password to be used in this file.
   * Or add the ORG\_TALEND\_IPAAS\_RT\_KEYPAIR\_MANAGER\_KEYPAIR\_KEYSTORE\_PASSWORD variable to your system environment and define your password there.
5. Start your engine.

## Results

Your engine now generates a new pair of public and private keys in a new keystore and uses your password to encrypt them.

## What to do next

Start to pair your engine.