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Full Discussion: Secure private key
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Secure private key Post 302624409 by abdul.irfan2 on Monday 16th of April 2012 08:34:27 AM
Old 04-16-2012
Secure private key

Hello all,

We have unix environment and we would like to use ssh public and private key to move between server using ssh. I do know how to test this and have it up and running on some sandbox...but my question is how would one secure the PRIVATE KEY....we are not using a passphrase...and i know looking at all the BEST PRACTICE the first thing said is have a passphrase....besides the passphrase how can we make sure/protect our keys (permissions are set to 600)...here is the setup...

server1 have my private key
server 2 has public key
server 3 has public key
server 4 has public key

we are going to use server1 as our hub to move/ssh to other server...so how would i secure/protect my private key on server1.... like i mentioned we do not want to use passphrase...any other things we can do on server1 to make sure my private key is secure?? Just wanted to get some thoughts...and please keep in mind i am not a system administrator...
 

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ssh-add(1)							   User Commands							ssh-add(1)

NAME
ssh-add - add RSA or DSA identities to the authentication agent SYNOPSIS
ssh-add [-lLdDxX] [-t life] [ file ]... DESCRIPTION
The ssh-add utility adds RSA or DSA identities to the authentication agent, ssh-agent(1). When run without arguments, it attempts to add all of the files $HOME/.ssh/identity (RSA v1), $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa (RSA v2), and $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa (DSA v2) that exist. If more than one of the private keys exists, an attempt to decrypt each with the same passphrase will be made before reprompting for a different passphrase. The passphrase is read from the user's tty or by running the program defined in SSH_ASKPASS (see below). The authentication agent must be running. OPTIONS
The following options are supported: -d Instead of adding the identity, this option removes the identity from the agent. -D Deletes all identities from the agent. -l Lists fingerprints of all identities currently represented by the agent. -L Lists public key parameters of all identities currently represented by the agent. -t life Sets a maximum lifetime when adding identities to an agent. The lifetime may be specified in seconds or in a time format speci- fied in sshd(1M). -x Locks the agent with a password. -X Unlocks the agent. ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
DISPLAY If ssh-add needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from the current terminal if it was run from a terminal. If SSH_ASKPASS ssh-add does not have a terminal associated with it but DISPLAY and SSH_ASKPASS are set, it will execute the program spec- ified by SSH_ASKPASS and open an X11 window to read the passphrase. This is particularly useful when calling ssh-add from a .Xsession or related script. SSH_AUTH_SOCK Identifies the path of a unix-domain socket used to communicate with the agent. EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned: 0 Successful completion. 1 An error occurred. FILES
These files should not be readable by anyone but the user. Notice that ssh-add ignores a file if it is accessible by others. It is possible to specify a passphrase when generating the key; that passphrase will be used to encrypt the private part of this file. If these files are stored on a network file system it is assumed that either the protection provided in the file themselves or the trans- port layer of the network file system provides sufficient protection for the site policy. If this is not the case, then it is recommended the key files are stored on removable media or locally on the relevant hosts. Recommended names for the DSA and RSA key files: $HOME/.ssh/identity Contains the RSA authentication identity of the user for protocol version 1. $HOME/.ssh/identity.pub Contains the public part of the RSA authentication identity of the user for protocol version 1. $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa Contains the private DSA authentication identity of the user. $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa.pub Contains the public part of the DSA authentication identity of the user. $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa Contains the private RSA authentication identity of the user. $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub Contains the public part of the RSA authentication identity of the user. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWsshu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Interface Stability |Evolving | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
ssh(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(1M), attributes(5) SunOS 5.11 9 Jan 2004 ssh-add(1)
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