diff --git a/src/confd/bin/gen-hostkeys b/src/confd/bin/gen-hostkeys
index 76037057..7c42169b 100755
--- a/src/confd/bin/gen-hostkeys
+++ b/src/confd/bin/gen-hostkeys
@@ -1,15 +1,14 @@
 #!/bin/sh
+KEYNAME=$(mktemp -u)
+
+ssh-keygen -f ${KEYNAME}  -t rsa -N "" > /dev/null
+
+PUBKEY=$(awk '{print $2}' "${KEYNAME}.pub")
 
-# generate a new key
 PRIVPEM=$(openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:2048 -outform PEM 2>/dev/null)
 # remove header/footer and newlines
 PRIVKEY=$(echo "$PRIVPEM" | grep -v -- "-----" | tr -d "\n")
 
-# get public key
-PUBPEM=$(echo "$PRIVPEM" | openssl rsa -pubout 2>/dev/null)
-# remove header/footer and newlines
-PUBKEY=$(echo "$PUBPEM" | grep -v -- "-----" | tr -d "\n")
-
 # generate edit config
 cat <<EOF
 {
@@ -29,3 +28,5 @@ cat <<EOF
   }
 }
 EOF
+
+rm "${KEYNAME}"*