Questions[keys](server)

I would like to launch my stack using a keypair that is created as part of the CloudFormation.

Is that possible?

....
"Resources": {
    "ReverseProxyKeyPair": {
        "Type": "AWS::EC2::KeyPair",
        "Properties": {
            "KeyName": "reverse_proxy"
        }
    },
....

was a guess, but hasn't worked. I haven't tracked down a schema for CloudFormation to say this isn't possible.

Most of the examples assume a KeyPair has already been created - I assume because there's only one chance to download it, at creation-time. But I'd like to dynamically create one, and then use it as an Output and dump it into S3 (say).

Or, is this a silly idea?

I have no clue on how this happens. The distro is Scientific Linux 6.1 and everything is set up to perform authentication via public key. Yet, when sshd is running as a daemon (service sshd start), it doesn't accept public keys. (To obtain this piece of log, I've changed the sshd script to add the -ddd option)

debug1: trying public key file /root/.ssh/authorized_keys
debug1: restore_uid: 0/0
debug1: temporarily_use_uid: 0/0 (e=0/0)
debug1: trying public key file /root/.ssh/authorized_keys2
debug1: restore_uid: 0/0
Failed publickey for root from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx port xxxxx ssh2
debug3: mm_answer_keyallowed: key 0x7f266e1a8840 is not allowed
debug3: mm_request_send entering: type 22
debug3: mm_request_receive entering
debug2: userauth_pubkey: authenticated 0 pkalg ssh-rsa
debug3: Wrote 64 bytes for a total of 1853
debug1: userauth-request for user root service ssh-connection method publickey
debug1: attempt 2 failures 1

If sshd is run in debug mode /usr/sbin/sshd -ddd, authentication works like a charm:

debug1: trying public key file /root/.ssh/authorized_keys
debug1: fd 4 clearing O_NONBLOCK
debug1: matching key found: file /root/.ssh/authorized_keys, line 1
Found matching RSA key: d7:3a:08:39:f7:28:dc:ea:f3:71:7c:23:92:02:02:d8
debug1: restore_uid: 0/0
debug3: mm_answer_keyallowed: key 0x7f85527ef230 is allowed
debug3: mm_request_send entering: type 22
debug3: mm_request_receive entering
debug3: Wrote 320 bytes for a total of 2109
debug2: userauth_pubkey: authenticated 0 pkalg ssh-rsa
Postponed publickey for root from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx port xxxxx ssh2
debug1: userauth-request for user root service ssh-connection method publickey
debug1: attempt 2 failures 0

Any ideas?? Has anyone seen anything like this?

Notes:

File permissions have been double checked:

# ll -d .ssh
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Oct 14 10:05 .ssh
# ll .ssh
total 16
-rw-------. 1 root root  786 Oct 14 09:35 authorized_keys
-rw-------. 1 root root 1675 Oct 13 08:24 id_rsa
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  393 Oct 13 08:24 id_rsa.pub
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  448 Oct 13 12:51 known_hosts

I was asked if sshd can access root's files in "daemon mode". The closest answer I get to this question is:

# netstat -ntap | grep 22
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:22                  0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      19847/sshd 
# ps -ef | grep 19847
root     19847     1  0 09:58 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/sshd

If sshd is running as root, I don't know how it's not possible to access its own files. Could SELinux be the cause?

We are looking to switch to key-based management of SSH logins, and wonder if there any key-management systems which would allow us to centrally manage the access keys world-wide.

The system should ideally allow issuing key per client, and revoking them if needed, updating server machine keys on fly.

Does anyone know of such a system, either commercial or open source?

NOTE: To clarify, we need the key management for pretty large amount of cloud servers (EC2-like), and a small amount of service users. I guess LDAP + patch suggest below might be the way to go.

This is my last resort. I've been trying to figure out the problem here for hours.

Here's the deal: I have copied my private key from machine #1 onto machine #2. Machine #1 is able to connect via ssh to a server with my public key just fine, but machine #2 gives the following output, when trying to connect to the server:

$ ssh -vvv -i /home/kevin/.ssh/kev_rsa [email protected] -p 22312
OpenSSH_5.3p1 Debian-3ubuntu6, OpenSSL 0.9.8k 25 Mar 2009
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Applying options for *
debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0
debug1: Connecting to 192.168.1.244 [192.168.1.244] port 22312.
debug1: Connection established.
debug3: Not a RSA1 key file /home/kevin/.ssh/kev_rsa.
debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type '-----BEGIN'
debug3: key_read: missing keytype
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace

...


Permission denied (publickey).

There is obviously more debug output that I have omitted, and I can provide upon request. I am convinced however that it doesn't like my private key file.

I also had a suspicion that it has to do with how I copied it from machine #1 to machine #2. I copy/pasted the text from the private key onto a flash drive. This might be the problem, however, when I duplicated this method on another working private key file, and did a diff on the original, to the copy/pasted one, they are identical.

I've been struggling with this. If I could just get a little more information on why it doesn't like my key, I could fix it I'm sure. Anyone have any ideas on this? Is there some meta-data somewhere that tells ssh that a file is in fact an RSA key?

I ran dpkg-buildpackage after getting a apt-get source nginx of a backports version of nginx and modifying debian/rules to include the uwsgi module. The last results of the command were:

dpkg-deb: building package `nginx' in `../nginx_0.7.67-3~bpo50+1_i386.deb'.
dpkg-deb: building package `nginx-dbg' in `../nginx-dbg_0.7.67-3~bpo50+1_i386.deb'.
 signfile nginx_0.7.67-3~bpo50+1.dsc
gpg: keyring `/home/shogun/.gnupg/secring.gpg' created
gpg: skipped "Faidon Liambotis <[email protected]>": secret key not available
gpg: [stdin]: clearsign failed: secret key not available

 dpkg-genchanges  >../nginx_0.7.67-3~bpo50+1_i386.changes
dpkg-genchanges: warning: the current version (0.7.67-3~bpo50+1) is smaller than the previous one (0.7.67-3)
dpkg-genchanges: not including original source code in upload
dpkg-buildpackage: binary and diff upload (original source NOT included)
dpkg-buildpackage: warning: Failed to sign .dsc and .changes file

It complains that because I'm not the original maintainer of the package, my key didnt match.

Is this really necessary and if so how can I make it use my keys to do the gpg matching?