What should be a secret key (or an authentication key) that passed to `NewCookieStore()` in `gorilla/sessions`?

Question

In gorilla/sessions, func NewCookieStore(keyPairs ...[]byte) *CookieStore is a used to create a new CookieStore. But I don't actually know what is a secret key (or an authentication key).

The description had said that :

It is recommended to use an authentication key with 32 or 64 bytes.

Therefore, is this means that I can randomly push any string with length of 32 or 64? How do you choose your authentication key?

Answer 1

From the end of that paragraph in the documentation for NewCookieStore:

Use the convenience function securecookie.GenerateRandomKey() to create strong keys.

Use securecookie.GenerateRandomKey