Van Dyke's Public Key Assistant

[Dan Kaminsky]

I'd been thinking for some time we need something better than my present 
fuglier-than-thou solution, something along the lines of:

cat ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub | ssh user at host "cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2"

There are just so many things that can go wrong -- replacing > for >>, 
some sites need it to be authorized_keys, etc.  If there's a mildly 
standardized subsystem, I can't imagine what'd be bad about adding 
support for it to OpenSSH.  We could even somewhat safely support an 
escape command to automatically add "this identity" to the local 
authorized key, inside a separate channel (ssh2 only).  We can do this 
now with the above hack, but...not as elegantly as any of us might like.

--Dan


Damien Miller wrote:

>Randy Gordey wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Jeff Van Dyke's "Public Key Assistant subsystem" was previously discussed
>>here: (end of a short thread)
>>
>>http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-dev&m=103436908422003&w=2
>>
>>I do see a few comments that seem to point out his arrogance and some
>>disgust about OpenBSD's RCSID, but has anybody found it to be unsecure or if
>>it was bug ridden. The subject sorta dies right there. If you follow the
>>links on www.vandyke.com, they still seem to be maintaining the patch...
>>    
>>
>
>Speaking personally, I haven't had time too look at it.
>
>  
>
>>Even if it was never going to be part of the RFC and might be only mildly
>>popular is there a technical reason the OpenSSH project's source should not
>>include his patch? Does it hamstring security? 
>>    
>>
>
>Every patch has security implications, things that manipulate
>authorisation databases (such as authorized_keys) require additional
>scrutiny.
>
>-d
>
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