[Watford] SSH Questions

[Mark Stewart]

good - point. I want to avoid a PKI style role out - I'm looking at
ways of locking/changing location of the authorized_key file.

On 16/09/2008, Yvan Seth <watford.lug.org.uk at malignity.net> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 03:29:54PM +0100, Mark Stewart wrote:
>> Hi Magnus, thanks for your input. I think that what Yvan said is true
>> and that it will come down to policy even if I distributed the keys
>> myself as users can update their own authorized_keys file in their
>> .ssh folder. I guess if I get time I could police by locking down the
>> authorized_keys file so users can't update it but will involve some
>> testing.
>>
>> I could also check the authorized key file to ensure it only has keys
>> generated by me inside it. mmmm, I need to go and do some testing.
>
> Alas, Magnus's suggestion doesn't quite work.  You can distribute
> pre-passphrased keys but then your users (who obviously must know the
> passphrase) can "unwwap" the key to an unprotected version (see the
> ssh-keygen manpage.)  Assuming you have mischievous users.
>
> There is another completely different option... use an external key
> dongle of some kind.  See the -I option for the command-line SSH client.
> I've never seen this in action and have no idea what the caveats are.
> Top Google links for "ssh smartcard":
>     http://smartcard-auth.de/ssh-en.html
>     http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/Smart-Card-HOWTO.html
> (Question for further research: what's to stop someone from simply
> dumping the key data from the "smart" card?)
>
> -Yvan
>
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