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<h1 id="DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</h1>

<p><b>EVP_PKEY</b> is a generic structure to hold diverse types of asymmetric keys (also known as &quot;key pairs&quot;), and can be used for diverse operations, like signing, verifying signatures, key derivation, etc. The asymmetric keys themselves are often referred to as the &quot;internal key&quot;, and are handled by backends, such as providers (through <a href="../man3/EVP_KEYMGMT.html">EVP_KEYMGMT(3)</a>) or <b>ENGINE</b>s.</p>

<p>Conceptually, an <b>EVP_PKE