Re: Changing IP and Hostname...

[rader]

 > From: [i think] Christian Pearce 
 > > > How many people trust the public keys to be transfered across there
 > > > networks?  For that matter do you trust you public host key for SSH. I
 > > > guess this is more of a security question.  I have a good level of tru
 > st
 > > > for my network and I am usually the first one to run the cfagent.  Plu
 > s
 > > > I only allow the IP I want on to contact cfengine.  I don't blanket
 > > > allow a class C.

 > On Wed, 2004-04-28 at 07:47, Mark.Burgess@iu.hio.no wrote:
 > > Why would you care about a public key? If you trust ssh, then you
 > > should trust cfengine.

 > From: Christian Pearce
 > I don't but you are suppose to copy the public key into place so you can
 > verify the original.  Is this not correct?  [...]

I don't think this is correct.  Or, rather, it happens automagically:
when you ssh to new system, you accept it's public key, and ssh
puts the key in known_hosts.  And thus you don't have to (manually)
verify the public key.

 > I get the feeling that most
 > people just trust the public key coming from the server is correct and
 > therefore safe.  I was just curious how many people are paranoid.

As I understand it, you have to trust local notion of the remote
public key just once.  After that, if they differ then software
should refuse to trust the remote system.  Change the local notion
of a public key for a remote system (edit known_hosts) and ssh will
complain very loudly:

 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
 @    WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!     @
 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
 IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!

steve
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