If you use a trezor hardware wallet (and probably other hardware wallets) you can deterministically regenerate -sk keys.
I use trezors various agents for AGE, FIDO2/passkey, ssh.
But you still need the backup some bits of material like stubs for some FIDOA keys (not secret material) that need importing into fresh trezor devices.
It's approaching the never lose a key again levels.
Of course, I won't pretend there isn't an obvious issue. What if you lose the seed words or someone gains access. What if the software becomes incompatible, or trezor devices become expensive/change etc.
Crazy that this particular feature we’ve all been waiting for hasn’t received first-party support by any DevEx company.
You know, the companies that say security is their number one priority, or companies that scream “developers, developers, developers”. How Google and Apple didn’t come up with something together eludes me, but then again, we have entire ecosystems and categories deployed in the areas they don’t service (auth, application control, etc).
As cool as this is, this does limit the functionality of your keys, because not everything can access the secure enclave in the way it wants to - and as others point out, this is a one-way street and locks your mac hardware into the flow.
I went with this system for some months but it ultimately broke my workflow. I switched to a system of my own devising, in which my local security key decrypts the SSH keys I require.
If you do this, have at least one backup key (if need be on paper) or a guaranteed alternate path into the hosts you depend on this key to access. Because if the secure enclave is as good as we're told, if you lose access to ->THIS<- secure enclave, its game over for the keys.
Secure enclave protecting Keychain, the keychain is backed up. Not the contents of the enclave.
Too many failed access attempts? poof the key is gone. Could be as low as 10.
(happy to be corrected. This is what I gather from a quick read-around. I was a bit surprised the site didn't seem to discuss this)
Your backup key should also be in a secure enclave, just in a different secure enclave. Both keys should be accepted by the system.
The truly paranoid can multiple types of secure enclaves - TouchID for primary, a YubiKey for backup.
> If need be on paper
Your security is only as strong as its weakest link. Paper has a way of getting photographed, and the privacy of your key depends on your OCR software, unless you really want to painstakingly copy it in by hand, and even then, it turns into a file-based key on the filesystem, with all its attendant risks.
No, paper for cold storage has the advantage of requiring physical access. Not some virus or hacker breaking into your computer from hundreds of miles away. If you are living in the US, gun ownership provides additional security over this piece of paper at home.
> No key files (like ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub and friends) littering the file system; and there’s no risk of mistakenly deleting them either.
Or backing them up, or copying them to your new computer. You're just one spilled coffee cup away from losing the key.
Yes I don't see how that's helpful.
It's quite opposite of what I'd want.
If you use a trezor hardware wallet (and probably other hardware wallets) you can deterministically regenerate -sk keys.
I use trezors various agents for AGE, FIDO2/passkey, ssh.
But you still need the backup some bits of material like stubs for some FIDOA keys (not secret material) that need importing into fresh trezor devices.
It's approaching the never lose a key again levels.
Of course, I won't pretend there isn't an obvious issue. What if you lose the seed words or someone gains access. What if the software becomes incompatible, or trezor devices become expensive/change etc.
Yes, this only works if you can register more than 1 ssh keys on the services you want.
Sounds complicated. Just install https://secretive.dev/
It's literately TWO shell commands? One for generating the key in the secure enclave and one for adding it to ssh-agent?
Crazy that this particular feature we’ve all been waiting for hasn’t received first-party support by any DevEx company.
You know, the companies that say security is their number one priority, or companies that scream “developers, developers, developers”. How Google and Apple didn’t come up with something together eludes me, but then again, we have entire ecosystems and categories deployed in the areas they don’t service (auth, application control, etc).
As cool as this is, this does limit the functionality of your keys, because not everything can access the secure enclave in the way it wants to - and as others point out, this is a one-way street and locks your mac hardware into the flow.
I went with this system for some months but it ultimately broke my workflow. I switched to a system of my own devising, in which my local security key decrypts the SSH keys I require.
If you do this, have at least one backup key (if need be on paper) or a guaranteed alternate path into the hosts you depend on this key to access. Because if the secure enclave is as good as we're told, if you lose access to ->THIS<- secure enclave, its game over for the keys.
Secure enclave protecting Keychain, the keychain is backed up. Not the contents of the enclave.
Too many failed access attempts? poof the key is gone. Could be as low as 10.
(happy to be corrected. This is what I gather from a quick read-around. I was a bit surprised the site didn't seem to discuss this)
Your backup key should also be in a secure enclave, just in a different secure enclave. Both keys should be accepted by the system.
The truly paranoid can multiple types of secure enclaves - TouchID for primary, a YubiKey for backup.
> If need be on paper
Your security is only as strong as its weakest link. Paper has a way of getting photographed, and the privacy of your key depends on your OCR software, unless you really want to painstakingly copy it in by hand, and even then, it turns into a file-based key on the filesystem, with all its attendant risks.
No, paper for cold storage has the advantage of requiring physical access. Not some virus or hacker breaking into your computer from hundreds of miles away. If you are living in the US, gun ownership provides additional security over this piece of paper at home.
happy 1Password user since years, provides this too and you'll have you ssh keys in the 1P keychain (yes, not open source, I know - only flaw imho)
I am doing the same, such a great underrated feature that many people do not know of.
That would make it extractable and syncable to other hosts. That's fine if that's what you want but it's an important distinction.
yes, that's exactly what I want :) (and the private key is only living inside 1Password and isn't extractable from there)
https://www.1password.dev/ssh/manage-keys#export-an-ssh-key
You’re mistaken. 1Password syncs keys. Therefore, they’re extractable.