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encrypt private keys for dropbear ssh-access

4 votes
1 answer
1595 views
I'd like to use [dropbear](https://matt.ucc.asn.au/dropbear/dropbear.html) as an alternative, minimal ssh-server and -client. dropbear allows the use of private-public-keys for ssh-access, although [the keys are not identical to the ones used by openssh and have to be converted using the dropbearconvert-command](https://github.com/mkj/dropbear) (which is easy to do). The issue I'm having is that [dropbear doesn't natively support encrypted private keys](https://github.com/mkj/dropbear) . But leaving unencrypted ssh-keys on my laptop is something I'd like to avoid out of principle. Therefore my question: does anyone have any good ideas on how to circumvent that issue and have a method (script?) that: * decrypts the keys I use for dropbear (e.g. using gnupg) and loads them into memory, * passes them to the dbclient-binary (the dropbear-client-application), and * starts the ssh-connection In addition I'd like to know if an alternative to the ssh-config option (especially the ones for Host) exists for dropbear (and therefore if it is possible to create a host-specific config file for dropbear where I can specify e.g. the IP-address, the port and other details).
Asked by n0542344 (416 rep)
Oct 4, 2020, 03:46 PM
Last activity: Oct 4, 2020, 05:34 PM