3 .\" Manual for the key-management tool
5 .\" (c) 2008 Straylight/Edgeware
8 .\"----- Licensing notice ---------------------------------------------------
10 .\" This file is part of Trivial IP Encryption (TrIPE).
12 .\" TrIPE is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
13 .\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
14 .\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
15 .\" (at your option) any later version.
17 .\" TrIPE is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
18 .\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
19 .\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
20 .\" GNU General Public License for more details.
22 .\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
23 .\" along with TrIPE; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
24 .\" Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
26 .\"--------------------------------------------------------------------------
27 .so ../defs.man.in \" @@@PRE@@@
29 .\"--------------------------------------------------------------------------
30 .TH tripe-keys 8 "14 September 2005" "Straylight/Edgeware" "TrIPE: Trivial IP Encryption"
32 .\"--------------------------------------------------------------------------
35 tripe-keys \- simple centralized key management for tripe
37 .\"--------------------------------------------------------------------------
42 .IP "Operations supported:"
43 .BI "help \fR[" command \fR]
59 .\"--------------------------------------------------------------------------
64 script implements a very simple, centralized key management system for
66 It assumes that there is a central authority who knows all the public
67 keys for a private network.
73 of public keys. It provides a way for a master authority to publish the
74 repository and for clients to obtain authentic copies of it.
76 The repository is very simple: it consists of a directory
78 full of public-key files, each named
79 .BI peer- tag .pub \fR.
81 The repository setup process creates a master signing key, stored in the
83 keyring, and a key describing the parameters to be used for generating
84 key-exchange keys, stored in
87 The master authority has a configuration file
88 .BR tripe-keys.master ,
89 usually created by copying the template provided and editing it.
91 The published repository consists of a tarball of the
93 directory, containing the key-generation parameters and all the peers'
94 public keys, and a client configuration file
96 The tarball is signed by the master authority's signing key.
98 The client configuration file is essentially a copy of
100 with some extra bits filled in: in particular, it contains the
101 fingerprint of the master signing key, so that the client can be sure
102 it's checking the right key.
104 A peer starts by downloading a copy of
106 and then making sure it's authentic. (This is one of the tricky bits.
107 The other is getting public keys back to the master authority.) This is
108 enough for the peer to fetch a copy of the repository, verify the
109 signature, and assemble a public keyring for the other peers in the
114 that simple. The system allows new signing keys to replace old ones, so
115 in fact the publication process signs the repository archive using a
116 collection of keys. Each signing key is given a sequence number. The
117 client configuration file contains the sequence number of the master
118 signing key whose fingerprint it knows. During an update, the right
119 signature is fetched and checked; if there's a new master key, then the
121 in the new repository archive will have its sequence number and
122 fingerprint: the update process will replace its configuration file with
123 the new version, and the peer will use the new key from then on.
127 program accepts some standard command-line options:
130 Print general help about
132 to standard output and exit successfully.
134 .B "\-v, \-\-version"
135 Print the version number of
137 to standard output and exit successfully.
140 Print brief usage about
142 to standard output and exit successfully.
145 .BI "help \fR[" command \fR]
146 With no arguments, shows help, as for the
148 option. With an argument, shows help about that
152 Constructs a new repository and makes a signing key (as for
154 and key-exchange parameters. Fails if
159 Build a repository archive, sign it with the active signing keys, and
162 file. Copy the results to the places named by
167 respectively. (This command is currently misnamed. It only copies
168 stuff about the local filesystem. Some day it'll really upload stuff.)
171 Generate a peer key for the peer named
173 The private key ends up in
175 the public key is written to
182 Fetches a new copy of the repository archive and its signature. It
183 unpacks the archive in a temporary directory, and checks the enclosed
184 master public key against the fingerprint in the configuration file. It
185 then verifies the signature on the archive using this public key. If
186 all is well, it replaces the current
188 directory with the version in the new archive, and if necessary it
189 replaces the current configuration file with the new one in the
190 archive. It then does a
197 Generates a new master signing key. The old master key is not deleted.
200 Rebuilds the public keyring
202 from the public keys in the
207 Deletes everything which
209 might have written to a directory. In particular, it deletes
219 .\"--------------------------------------------------------------------------
223 .BR tripe\-keys.conf (5),
226 .\"--------------------------------------------------------------------------
229 Mark Wooding, <mdw@distorted.org.uk>
231 .\"----- That's all, folks --------------------------------------------------