2 ms·
Developers can't be trusted with SSH private keys. I'm stunned by how many times I've asked a developer to send their SSH public key only to see them dump their
by pxc 4y ago
Developers can't be trusted with SSH private keys. I'm stunned by how many times I've asked a developer to send their SSH public key only to see them dump their private keys on Slack, in a Pastebin, or in a Git commit or wherever.
It would be so much better if standard practice was to generate and store the private key on a smartcard or the TPM, so that the only file a clueless/careless developer could upload would be a stub.
- Reitet00 4y ago> It would be so much better if standard practice was to generate and store the private key on a smartcard or the TPM, so that the only file a clueless/careless developer could upload would be a stub. Yep. Especially given that basically all modern laptops (and some PCs) ship with TPMs and ssh can use it via the TPM PKCS#11 lib. I'm using that daily on multiple machines and it's working great.
- 8organicbits 4y agoIt's too late to fix now, but that sounds like a file naming UX issue. If you type `cat ~/.ssh/id_` and hit tab, you'll see `id_rsa` first, which is the wrong one. It really should be named `id_rsa.private` to help a busy developer realize they have the wrong file.