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seanw2020 / configure-CAs.png
Last active November 14, 2019 14:58
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configure-CAs.png
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seanw2020 / ssh-ca.md
Last active February 19, 2024 03:15
How to configure and visualize an SSH CA

How to configure an SSH CA, with visuals

ssh certificates

SSH CA

For details, see "Mastering SSH", Second Edition, Chapter 14: Certificate Authorities. Also see 'man ssh-keygen': "ssh-keygen supports signing of keys to produce certificates that may be used for user or host authentication. Certificates consist of a public key, some identity information, zero or more principal (user or host) names and a set of options that are signed by a Certification Authority (CA) key. Clients or servers may then trust only the CA key and verify its signature on a certificate rather than trusting many user/host keys. Note that OpenSSH certificates are a different, and much simpler, format to the X.509 certificates used in ssl(8).

Create two CAs

Choose a computer to act as the CA. We'll call this the CA computer (not CA host, since "host" is overloaded here). In this examp