PROTOCOL.certkeys - third_party/openssh-portable - Git at Google

 This document describes a simple public-key certificate authentication
 system for use by SSH.

 Background
 ----------

 The SSH protocol currently supports a simple public key authentication
 mechanism. Unlike other public key implementations, SSH eschews the
 use of X.509 certificates and uses raw keys. This approach has some
 benefits relating to simplicity of configuration and minimisation
 of attack surface, but it does not support the important use-cases
 of centrally managed, passwordless authentication and centrally
 certified host keys.

 These protocol extensions build on the simple public key authentication
 system already in SSH to allow certificate-based authentication.
 The certificates used are not traditional X.509 certificates, with
 numerous options and complex encoding rules, but something rather
 more minimal: a key, some identity information and usage constraints
 that have been signed with some other trusted key.

 A sshd server may be configured to allow authentication via certified
 keys, by extending the existing ~/.ssh/authorized_keys mechanism
 to allow specification of certification authority keys in addition
 to raw user keys. The ssh client will support automatic verification
 of acceptance of certified host keys, by adding a similar ability
 to specify CA keys in ~/.ssh/known_hosts.

 Certified keys are represented using two new key types:
 ssh-rsa-cert-v00@openssh.com and ssh-dss-cert-v00@openssh.com that
 include certification information along with the public key that is used
 to sign challenges. ssh-keygen performs the CA signing operation.

 Protocol extensions
 -------------------

 The SSH wire protocol includes several extensibility mechanisms.
 These modifications shall take advantage of namespaced public key
 algorithm names to add support for certificate authentication without
 breaking the protocol - implementations that do not support the
 extensions will simply ignore them.

 Authentication using the new key formats described below proceeds
 using the existing SSH "publickey" authentication method described
 in RFC4252 section 7.

 New public key formats
 ----------------------

 The ssh-rsa-cert-v00@openssh.com and ssh-dss-cert-v00@openssh.com key
 types take a similar high-level format (note: data types and
 encoding are as per RFC4251 section 5). The serialised wire encoding of
 these certificates is also used for storing them on disk.

 #define SSH_CERT_TYPE_USER    1
 #define SSH_CERT_TYPE_HOST    2

 RSA certificate

     string    "ssh-rsa-cert-v00@openssh.com"
     mpint     e
     mpint     n
     uint32    type
     string    key id
     string    valid principals
     uint64    valid after
     uint64    valid before
     string    constraints
     string    nonce
     string    reserved
     string    signature key
     string    signature

 DSA certificate

     string    "ssh-dss-cert-v00@openssh.com"
     mpint     p
     mpint     q
     mpint     g
     mpint     y
     uint32    type
     string    key id
     string    valid principals
     uint64    valid after
     uint64    valid before
     string    constraints
     string    nonce
     string    reserved
     string    signature key
     string    signature

 e and n are the RSA exponent and public modulus respectively.

 p, q, g, y are the DSA parameters as described in FIPS-186-2.

 type specifies whether this certificate is for identification of a user
 or a host using a SSH_CERT_TYPE_... value.

 key id is a free-form text field that is filled in by the CA at the time
 of signing; the intention is that the contents of this field are used to
 identify the identity principal in log messages.

 "valid principals" is a string containing zero or more principals as
 strings packed inside it. These principals list the names for which this
 certificate is valid; hostnames for SSH_CERT_TYPE_HOST certificates and
 usernames for SSH_CERT_TYPE_USER certificates. As a special case, a
 zero-length "valid principals" field means the certificate is valid for
 any principal of the specified type. XXX DNS wildcards?

 "valid after" and "valid before" specify a validity period for the
 certificate. Each represents a time in seconds since 1970-01-01
 00:00:00. A certificate is considered valid if:
 	 valid after <= current time < valid before

 constraints is a set of zero or more key constraints encoded as below.

 The nonce field is a CA-provided random bitstring of arbitrary length
 (but typically 16 or 32 bytes) included to make attacks that depend on
 inducing collisions in the signature hash infeasible.

 The reserved field is current unused and is ignored in this version of
 the protocol.

 signature key contains the CA key used to sign the certificate.
 The valid key types for CA keys are ssh-rsa and ssh-dss. "Chained"
 certificates, where the signature key type is a certificate type itself
 are NOT supported. Note that it is possible for a RSA certificate key to
 be signed by a DSS CA key and vice-versa.

 signature is computed over all preceding fields from the initial string
 up to, and including the signature key. Signatures are computed and
 encoded according to the rules defined for the CA's public key algorithm
 (RFC4253 section 6.6 for ssh-rsa and ssh-dss).

 Constraints
 -----------

 The constraints section of the certificate specifies zero or more
 constraints on the certificates validity. The format of this field
 is a sequence of zero or more tuples:

     string       name
     string       data

 The name field identifies the constraint and the data field encodes
 constraint-specific information (see below). All constraints are
 "critical", if an implementation does not recognise a constraint
 then the validating party should refuse to accept the certificate.

 The supported constraints and the contents and structure of their
 data fields are:

 Name                    Format        Description
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 force-command           string        Specifies a command that is executed
                                       (replacing any the user specified on the
                                       ssh command-line) whenever this key is
                                       used for authentication.

 permit-X11-forwarding   empty         Flag indicating that X11 forwarding
                                       should be permitted. X11 forwarding will
                                       be refused if this constraint is absent.

 permit-agent-forwarding empty         Flag indicating that agent forwarding
                                       should be allowed. Agent forwarding
                                       must not be permitted unless this
                                       constraint is present.

 permit-port-forwarding  empty         Flag indicating that port-forwarding
                                       should be allowed. If this constraint is
                                       not present then no port forwarding will
                                       be allowed.

 permit-pty              empty         Flag indicating that PTY allocation
                                       should be permitted. In the absence of
                                       this constraint PTY allocation will be
                                       disabled.

 permit-user-rc          empty         Flag indicating that execution of
                                       ~/.ssh/rc should be permitted. Execution
                                       of this script will not be permitted if
                                       this constraint is not present.

 source-address          string        Comma-separated list of source addresses
                                       from which this certificate is accepted
                                       for authentication. Addresses are
                                       specified in CIDR format (nn.nn.nn.nn/nn
                                       or hhhh::hhhh/nn).
                                       If this constraint is not present then
                                       certificates may be presented from any
                                       source address.

 $OpenBSD: PROTOCOL.certkeys,v 1.3 2010/03/03 22:50:40 djm Exp $
	This document describes a simple public-key certificate authentication
	system for use by SSH.

	Background
	----------

	The SSH protocol currently supports a simple public key authentication
	mechanism. Unlike other public key implementations, SSH eschews the
	use of X.509 certificates and uses raw keys. This approach has some
	benefits relating to simplicity of configuration and minimisation
	of attack surface, but it does not support the important use-cases
	of centrally managed, passwordless authentication and centrally
	certified host keys.

	These protocol extensions build on the simple public key authentication
	system already in SSH to allow certificate-based authentication.
	The certificates used are not traditional X.509 certificates, with
	numerous options and complex encoding rules, but something rather
	more minimal: a key, some identity information and usage constraints
	that have been signed with some other trusted key.

	A sshd server may be configured to allow authentication via certified
	keys, by extending the existing ~/.ssh/authorized_keys mechanism
	to allow specification of certification authority keys in addition
	to raw user keys. The ssh client will support automatic verification
	of acceptance of certified host keys, by adding a similar ability
	to specify CA keys in ~/.ssh/known_hosts.

	Certified keys are represented using two new key types:
	ssh-rsa-cert-v00@openssh.com and ssh-dss-cert-v00@openssh.com that
	include certification information along with the public key that is used
	to sign challenges. ssh-keygen performs the CA signing operation.

	Protocol extensions
	-------------------

	The SSH wire protocol includes several extensibility mechanisms.
	These modifications shall take advantage of namespaced public key
	algorithm names to add support for certificate authentication without
	breaking the protocol - implementations that do not support the
	extensions will simply ignore them.

	Authentication using the new key formats described below proceeds
	using the existing SSH "publickey" authentication method described
	in RFC4252 section 7.

	New public key formats
	----------------------

	The ssh-rsa-cert-v00@openssh.com and ssh-dss-cert-v00@openssh.com key
	types take a similar high-level format (note: data types and
	encoding are as per RFC4251 section 5). The serialised wire encoding of
	these certificates is also used for storing them on disk.

	#define SSH_CERT_TYPE_USER 1
	#define SSH_CERT_TYPE_HOST 2

	RSA certificate

	string "ssh-rsa-cert-v00@openssh.com"
	mpint e
	mpint n
	uint32 type
	string key id
	string valid principals
	uint64 valid after
	uint64 valid before
	string constraints
	string nonce
	string reserved
	string signature key
	string signature

	DSA certificate

	string "ssh-dss-cert-v00@openssh.com"
	mpint p
	mpint q
	mpint g
	mpint y
	uint32 type
	string key id
	string valid principals
	uint64 valid after
	uint64 valid before
	string constraints
	string nonce
	string reserved
	string signature key
	string signature

	e and n are the RSA exponent and public modulus respectively.

	p, q, g, y are the DSA parameters as described in FIPS-186-2.

	type specifies whether this certificate is for identification of a user
	or a host using a SSH_CERT_TYPE_... value.

	key id is a free-form text field that is filled in by the CA at the time
	of signing; the intention is that the contents of this field are used to
	identify the identity principal in log messages.

	"valid principals" is a string containing zero or more principals as
	strings packed inside it. These principals list the names for which this
	certificate is valid; hostnames for SSH_CERT_TYPE_HOST certificates and
	usernames for SSH_CERT_TYPE_USER certificates. As a special case, a
	zero-length "valid principals" field means the certificate is valid for
	any principal of the specified type. XXX DNS wildcards?

	"valid after" and "valid before" specify a validity period for the
	certificate. Each represents a time in seconds since 1970-01-01
	00:00:00. A certificate is considered valid if:
	valid after <= current time < valid before

	constraints is a set of zero or more key constraints encoded as below.

	The nonce field is a CA-provided random bitstring of arbitrary length
	(but typically 16 or 32 bytes) included to make attacks that depend on
	inducing collisions in the signature hash infeasible.

	The reserved field is current unused and is ignored in this version of
	the protocol.

	signature key contains the CA key used to sign the certificate.
	The valid key types for CA keys are ssh-rsa and ssh-dss. "Chained"
	certificates, where the signature key type is a certificate type itself
	are NOT supported. Note that it is possible for a RSA certificate key to
	be signed by a DSS CA key and vice-versa.

	signature is computed over all preceding fields from the initial string
	up to, and including the signature key. Signatures are computed and
	encoded according to the rules defined for the CA's public key algorithm
	(RFC4253 section 6.6 for ssh-rsa and ssh-dss).

	Constraints
	-----------

	The constraints section of the certificate specifies zero or more
	constraints on the certificates validity. The format of this field
	is a sequence of zero or more tuples:

	string name
	string data

	The name field identifies the constraint and the data field encodes
	constraint-specific information (see below). All constraints are
	"critical", if an implementation does not recognise a constraint
	then the validating party should refuse to accept the certificate.

	The supported constraints and the contents and structure of their
	data fields are:

	Name Format Description
	-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
	force-command string Specifies a command that is executed
	(replacing any the user specified on the
	ssh command-line) whenever this key is
	used for authentication.

	permit-X11-forwarding empty Flag indicating that X11 forwarding
	should be permitted. X11 forwarding will
	be refused if this constraint is absent.

	permit-agent-forwarding empty Flag indicating that agent forwarding
	should be allowed. Agent forwarding
	must not be permitted unless this
	constraint is present.

	permit-port-forwarding empty Flag indicating that port-forwarding
	should be allowed. If this constraint is
	not present then no port forwarding will
	be allowed.

	permit-pty empty Flag indicating that PTY allocation
	should be permitted. In the absence of
	this constraint PTY allocation will be
	disabled.

	permit-user-rc empty Flag indicating that execution of
	~/.ssh/rc should be permitted. Execution
	of this script will not be permitted if
	this constraint is not present.

	source-address string Comma-separated list of source addresses
	from which this certificate is accepted
	for authentication. Addresses are
	specified in CIDR format (nn.nn.nn.nn/nn
	or hhhh::hhhh/nn).
	If this constraint is not present then
	certificates may be presented from any
	source address.

	$OpenBSD: PROTOCOL.certkeys,v 1.3 2010/03/03 22:50:40 djm Exp $