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But AuthorizedKeysCommand and certs are at least equally powerful because they're both ways of specifying the content of the same authorized_keys file.


It's something of an implementation detail - you don't generally specify the usage of certs on a user-by-user level, you do it by trusting the entire CA in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and then using the signed content of the individual cert (expiry date, principals etc) to dictate whether someone should be allowed to get access or not.

Look at it in terms of building in a decision at compile-time rather than at runtime. With AuthorizedKeysCommand, you're running something just-in-time on an SSH login to determine whether something should be allowed to proceed. With a CA and a process for issuing certificates, that decision is made at the time the cert is issued and then the cert is good for the duration it's issued for. It's entirely self-contained as sshd itself is making the decision about whether the cert is within its validity period or not.

It's obviously a decision that people can make based on their own infrastructure, but my opinion is that the compile-time model is more reliable as it's a fully self-contained system and doesn't rely on an entire fleet of servers being able to connect back to an external service at runtime to determine whether you should be allowed to log in. That sort of thing invariably comes back to bite you when you really _need_ to be able to log in and you can't because the external service is down.




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