Generate public/private keypair and output to stdout

generate-keypair.sh

#!/bin/bash

BITS=2048

# In one line:
# rm -f temp.key && ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048 -f temp.key -N "" -q && ssh-keygen -e -f temp.key -m PKCS8 | tr "\n" " " && echo && cat temp.key | tr "\n" " " && echo

# In multiple lines:
rm -f temp.key
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b $BITS -f temp.key -N "" -q
echo
ssh-keygen -e -f temp.key -m PKCS8 | tr "\n" " "
echo
echo
cat temp.key | tr "\n" " "
echo
echo

@allisonkarlitskaya Thanks for your contribution. Note that much of the trickery here, that is, all solution other than using openssl or your first Python solution, will fail if you work on a read-only filesystem.

Here's a practical example of this for encrypting the ssh key with sops and age in a taskfile:

version: "3"

gen-key:
  desc: Generate encrypted ssh key
  silent: true
  status:
    - test -f ssh.sops.key
  cmds:
    - mkfifo key key.pub
    - defer: rm key key.pub
    - cat key | sops -e /dev/stdin > ssh.sops.key &
    - 'printf "Your public key:\n$(cat key.pub)\n" &'
    - yes | ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f key > /dev/null