Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 24 Sep 2024 19:16:04 +0000
From:      Shawn Webb <shawn.webb@hardenedbsd.org>
To:        Colin Percival <cperciva@tarsnap.com>
Cc:        freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, Li-Wen Hsu <lwhsu@freebsd.org>,  Ronald Klop <ronald@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Deprecating RSA ssh host keys in 16
Message-ID:  <wzyhp2k7fyvg6qxrkrs32uweiuijpv7f6sjjt2yuonob7py3gj@7f7xdqj72erk>
In-Reply-To: <0100019225563885-e7f0aed8-cff8-4247-8bcd-861aed3e5cc7-000000@email.amazonses.com>
References:  <0100019225563885-e7f0aed8-cff8-4247-8bcd-861aed3e5cc7-000000@email.amazonses.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help

--dyfjfljtd52fzlwq
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Tue, Sep 24, 2024 at 06:41:00PM UTC, Colin Percival wrote:
> Hi all,
>=20
> Last week I turned off RSA host key generation for SSH in EC2 instances,
> because (a) modern SSH clients support ecdsa and ed25519 keys, and (b)
> generating RSA host keys was taking over 10% of the boot time when EC2
> instances booted for the first time.
>=20
> I don't think we should turn off RSA host key generation in general in
> 15.x since for non-VM/cloud images the first boot time is less relevant
> (if you're installing from an ISO image, the installer will take far
> longer than the host key generation) but I think it would make sense to
> deprecate RSA host keys in 15 and then turn them off by default in 16.
>=20
> I'm not sure if there's any good way to announce the deprecation beyond
> putting it into the release notes; we could print a warning in 15 when
> RSA host keys are generated, but that will always fire regardless of
> whether they're being *used* and I don't think there's any practical way
> to warn specifically when RSA host keys are *used*.  So unless I'm
> missing something, the deprecation would just take the form of a few lines
> in the release notes.
>=20
> Thoughts?

With commit e3f33c64ec168a48038309af0c237eda86d10c74[1], introduced on
14 Nov 2024, HardenedBSD has disabled the generation of RSA host keys
by default.

We haven't seen any reports of any breakage. While the change might be
considered a POLA violation, it seems pretty harmless on today's
15-CURRENT systems.

We have a number of 15-CURRENT users, though we don't have any hard
data, and likely pales in comparison to the FreeBSD side--enough so
that the sample is too small to be a significant or reliable data
point.

I have this commit taged as MFC-able, though I haven't MFC'd just yet.
It completely spaced my mind and I'll likely MFC shortly after sending
this email.

[1]: https://git.hardenedbsd.org/hardenedbsd/HardenedBSD/-/commit/e3f33c64e=
c168a48038309af0c237eda86d10c74

Thanks,

--=20
Shawn Webb
Cofounder / Security Engineer
HardenedBSD

Tor-ified Signal: +1 303-901-1600 / shawn_webb_opsec.50
https://git.hardenedbsd.org/hardenedbsd/pubkeys/-/raw/master/Shawn_Webb/03A=
4CBEBB82EA5A67D9F3853FF2E67A277F8E1FA.pub.asc

--dyfjfljtd52fzlwq
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQIzBAABCAAdFiEEA6TL67gupaZ9nzhT/y5nonf44foFAmbzD+0ACgkQ/y5nonf4
4frLBxAAh3O+J8tPSX5p3SuvoPop/XoXt6dBl0svZkQhLatAmT3DNoXSxwNLOBV7
8U6CBMRH8JT1f0aT7R0WCjdsZTT7Bw0n7/HdlLjgw3Y+Mdltdd74mSxWcXfMjNtQ
5a+01q8Bg46cPNL9YgdSJX3emOUY86eQ6bWpbuJUxobN3iVtuKUhMzSxi4U1yfX+
bJhegd+Nf+DA1QgKAd6S0V97pc8+wgr/dNpNgpH+NRcGvfD2s8Ae/Fnzljvfd3WQ
vucPBKipRZlU5nzx/eeziEkgNQghQD5w+0CkGlA9lshhmhz7/C/AA+wHhqWbS6MC
lfKKMry1TF0aQPy62SUprAqnIMCm2bhsNbDdXB6jz9vTTKc+Db+pg976Jjcv3Nwe
wb7Yiv+NDM64hZrsgEeK1reyzxSlGiqEHqBll7bsPPIcyvJLC925GV0TZPzqB1Sa
gFyC2lOiC8BJweYlqzrF41HzeHolZHon78M6ww8N+C/ovl6e7JRVg2n5M3e8Kova
x06pqDZXpUBp6K/BqsBS1Wfe/Yf7eGuvgvk1TYrUp9tMoseTweIDWm3vyb/iKQ9g
i+E8n6faq7JuR9GZl5hBWuNrpYIoB0CKUOaIO3WaUi+spyRKIJfrVDF/+PNntoi5
ls2bHnscUHIswVYnI3JRza997M2u7FYvNbzhG7cvWrMzHrEnRrg=
=Qlbi
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--dyfjfljtd52fzlwq--



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?wzyhp2k7fyvg6qxrkrs32uweiuijpv7f6sjjt2yuonob7py3gj>