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jfath
2015-02-16
2015-02-19
  • jfath

    jfath - 2015-02-16

    openssh uses its own format for public keys and certificates, but does seem to use a standard PEM / PKCS#1 format for private keys. I'm trying to figure out how to use xca to manage openssh keys and certificates.
    My best guess is that I can use xca to generate the private keys, then export them and use ssh-keygen to produce openssh public keys and certificates.
    Has anyone else tried this? Any tips or other ideas about the process?
    Thanks.
    Jerry

     
  • Christian Hohnstaedt

    OpenSSH certificates are quite different from x509 certificates. The only common thing is the name "certificate" and the idea of bundling a public key with user-information and sign it.

    The file format of SSH public keys is pretty simple.
    Adding import/export support for them to XCA shouldn't be that hard.

    The SSH-certificate is an extension of the SSH-public-key and
    the SSH-public-key import function would be able to import
    the public key part of an SSH-certificate.

     
  • jfath

    jfath - 2015-02-17

    Thanks, Christian!

    Adding import/export support for them to XCA shouldn't be that hard
    Does that mean you might consider adding it to a future xca release? That would be great. I would be happy to test or provide any other help possible.
    Jerry

     
  • Christian Hohnstaedt

    Hi Jerry,

    yesterday night I had some time to add SSH-Public-Key import/export functionality. It seems to work fine.
    https://sourceforge.net/p/xca/code/ci/master/tree/
    If you need help compiling, just drop me a private mail.

     
  • jfath

    jfath - 2015-02-19

    Thanks again Christian!

    It's all working fine for me too. If you ever have time to add support for openssh certificates, that would be really awesome. I know, always more feature requests :)

    Seriously, thanks again for this very useful tool.

    Jerry

     
  • Christian Hohnstaedt

    You're welcome.

    But as I said before:
    OpenSSH certificates are quite different from x509 certificates. The only common thing is the name "certificate" and the idea of bundling a public key with user-information and sign it.

    I don't think I will ever implement SSH certificate support. It does not fit.

    Maybe you want to go the X509 way: http://roumenpetrov.info/openssh/

     
  • jfath

    jfath - 2015-02-19

    That's understandable.

    I saw Roumen's work when I was researching all of this. I wish the openssh group would integrate x509 support into mainstream, but apparently they feel strongly that simple is safer, so I suppose I'll have to live with openssh certs or switch to the customized version.

    Thanks again.
    Jerry