SSH public keys are encoded in a special binary format, typically represented to end users as either one-liner OpenSSH format or multi-line PEM format (commerical SSH). Text wrapper carries extra information about user who created the key, comment, etc, but the inner binary is always base64-encoded and follows the same internal format.
This format spec deals with this internal binary format (called "blob" in openssh sources) only. Buffer is expected to be raw binary and not base64-d. Implementation closely follows code in OpenSSH.
This page hosts a formal specification of SSH public key using Kaitai Struct. This specification can be automatically translated into a variety of programming languages to get a parsing library.
meta:
id: ssh_public_key
title: SSH public key
license: CC0-1.0
endian: be
doc: |
SSH public keys are encoded in a special binary format, typically represented
to end users as either one-liner OpenSSH format or multi-line PEM format
(commerical SSH). Text wrapper carries extra information about user who
created the key, comment, etc, but the inner binary is always base64-encoded
and follows the same internal format.
This format spec deals with this internal binary format (called "blob" in
openssh sources) only. Buffer is expected to be raw binary and not base64-d.
Implementation closely follows code in OpenSSH.
doc-ref: 'https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/b4d4eda6/sshkey.c#L1970'
seq:
- id: key_name
type: cstring
- id: body
type:
switch-on: key_name.value
cases:
'"ssh-rsa"': key_rsa
'"ecdsa-sha2-nistp256"': key_ecdsa
'"ssh-ed25519"': key_ed25519
'"ssh-dss"': key_dsa
types:
key_rsa:
doc-ref: 'https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/b4d4eda6/sshkey.c#L2011-L2028'
seq:
- id: rsa_e
type: bignum2
doc: Public key exponent, designated `e` in RSA documentation.
- id: rsa_n
type: bignum2
doc: |
Modulus of both public and private keys, designated `n` in RSA
documentation. Its length in bits is designated as "key length".
instances:
key_length:
-webide-parse-mode: eager
value: rsa_n.length_in_bits
doc: Key length in bits
key_ecdsa:
doc-ref: 'https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/b4d4eda6/sshkey.c#L2060-L2103'
seq:
- id: curve_name
type: cstring
- id: ec
type: elliptic_curve
key_ed25519:
doc-ref: 'https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/b4d4eda6/sshkey.c#L2111-L2124'
seq:
- id: len_pk
type: u4
# must be 0x20
- id: pk
size: len_pk
key_dsa:
doc-ref: 'https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/b4d4eda6/sshkey.c#L2036-L2051'
seq:
- id: dsa_p
type: bignum2
- id: dsa_q
type: bignum2
- id: dsa_g
type: bignum2
- id: dsa_pub_key
type: bignum2
cstring:
doc: |
A integer-prefixed string designed to be read using `sshbuf_get_cstring`
and written by `sshbuf_put_cstring` routines in ssh sources. Name is an
obscure misnomer, as typically "C string" means a null-terminated string.
doc-ref: 'https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/b4d4eda6/sshbuf-getput-basic.c#L181'
-webide-representation: '{value}'
seq:
- id: len
type: u4
- id: value
type: str
size: len
encoding: ASCII
bignum2:
doc: |
Big integers serialization format used by ssh, v2. In the code, the following
routines are used to read/write it:
* sshbuf_get_bignum2
* sshbuf_get_bignum2_bytes_direct
* sshbuf_put_bignum2
* sshbuf_get_bignum2_bytes_direct
doc-ref: |
https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/b4d4eda6/sshbuf-getput-crypto.c#L35
https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/b4d4eda6/sshbuf-getput-basic.c#L431
seq:
- id: len
type: u4
- id: body
size: len
instances:
length_in_bits:
value: (len - 1) * 8
doc: |
Length of big integer in bits. In OpenSSH sources, this corresponds to
`BN_num_bits` function.
elliptic_curve:
doc: |
Elliptic curve dump format used by ssh. In OpenSSH code, the following
routines are used to read/write it:
* sshbuf_get_ec
* get_ec
doc-ref: |
https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/b4d4eda6/sshbuf-getput-crypto.c#L90
https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable/blob/b4d4eda6/sshbuf-getput-crypto.c#L76
seq:
- id: len
type: u4
- id: body
size: len