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Show HN: I built a simple, open-source tool to manage servers and SSH keys

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Re: Show HN: I built a simple, open-source tool to manage servers and SSH keys

#91
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least certificates expire, and can list capabilities right in the certificate?

Not exactly. Yes, the certs expire, so they can't log in again , but existing sessions are not terminated. With Userify, sessions (like tmux or screen) actually get terminated within seconds when the user's access is removed. That doesn't happen at all with certificates. If someone's certificate expires, but they're still logged in, they'll stay logged in, because there is no mechanism to kill their session (and they…

Fair point - in the case of a revoked cert, it'd probably be feasible to just watch the revocation list and pkill a user's sessions - with an expired cert, I'm not sure if there's anywhere to watch for that state-change.

Probably the best one could do out of the box is set an 8 hour session limit or so?

Re: Show HN: I built a simple, open-source tool to manage servers and SSH keys

#92
post #85

I see that you're getting hammered in this thread, so I want to say a few things: 1. Great job on shipping! Whether or not the people in this thread find this tool useful, I want to congratulate you on putting together something you're ready to share with the world. 2. I'd love to hear the story of what prompted you to create this tool. Was it an issue you had? Did you set out to make something easier? 3. Not everyth…

Definitely. As for the purpose of the tool and the issues, they will become clearer after the next couple of releases.

> As for the purpose of the tool and the issues, they will become clearer after the next couple of releases.

... wth

Re: Show HN: I built a simple, open-source tool to manage servers and SSH keys

#93
post #78
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No need to remember server IPs On your local machine under ~/.ssh/config you can add something like #PERSONAL Host vpn-us HostName 1.2.3.4 User my_fun_username Port 1212 now you can ssh using ssh vpn-us (above is the same as the following command --> ssh my_fun_username@1.2.3.4 -p1212)

Also you can organize servers into different config files and Include them your base config,. $ cat .ssh/config # Fictitious example Include work.config Include personal.config $ https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/ssh_config.5.html

This looks very useful. I did not know this. Thank you!

Re: Show HN: I built a simple, open-source tool to manage servers and SSH keys

#94
post #93
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also you can organize servers into different config files and Include them your base config,. $ cat .ssh/config # Fictitious example Include work.config Include personal.config $ https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/ssh_config.5.html

This looks very useful. I did not know this. Thank you!

Hope it helps. I use the configs as a source of truth and have a dozen or so different included files. This way the servers are grouped logically similar to ansible enventories (which I generate using the different configs). Running a command against all servers in one or more configs is simple this way:

  $ grep '^Host' .ssh/ | awk '{print $2}' | while read hst; do ssh $hst '' 2> /dev/null 

Re: Show HN: I built a simple, open-source tool to manage servers and SSH keys

#95
post #62

I see that you're getting hammered in this thread, so I want to say a few things: 1. Great job on shipping! Whether or not the people in this thread find this tool useful, I want to congratulate you on putting together something you're ready to share with the world. 2. I'd love to hear the story of what prompted you to create this tool. Was it an issue you had? Did you set out to make something easier? 3. Not everyth…

That was very well put. I noticed an increasing negativity in Show HN posts lately. The usual inquisitive and supportive comments are being replaced with straight up negative and dismissive ones (or maybe it was always like this and people being nice is just a fabricated memory of mine)

I think there are multiple reasons for that.

The first is an increased fatigue caused by some poor quality posts OR posts presenting the same thing again and again just by opportunism (e.g. boilerplates where people just share their thing as an Ad). Therefore, the trust has decreased and people start asking themselves "what's hidden behind".

Another reason might be related to the surge of cyberattacks of all kinds. Lots of comments here are not super nice, but they are polite and ask good and legitimate questions, especially regarding cybersecurity.

As long as people are polite, argumented criticism should be appreciated.

Re: Show HN: I built a simple, open-source tool to manage servers and SSH keys

#96

You are very close to solving a real business problem. The problem is not "how can I have SSH aliases on my computer" but "how can we manage, company-wide, who can access which SSH servers." My company currently uses YubiKeys to support hardware-based individual SSH keys. These SSH keys are distributed with Ansible. It works but is cumbersome and lacks a single pane of glass. What we would like to have: a list of ser…

You can do all that, including the YubiKeys, with 1Password for Teams, the Web UI to manage vaults with RBAC, the 1Password CLI and SSH Agent on machines, etc. See also the shell plugins.

https://developer.1password.com/docs/ssh/agent/security

https://developer.1password.com/docs/secrets-automation/#com...

https://1password.com/developer-security

https://1password.com/product/enterprise-password-manager

Or, depending on your use cases, check out Doppler:

https://docs.doppler.com/docs/workplace-team

https://community.doppler.com/t/generating-authorized-keys-f...

Re: Show HN: I built a simple, open-source tool to manage servers and SSH keys

#97
post #85

I see that you're getting hammered in this thread, so I want to say a few things: 1. Great job on shipping! Whether or not the people in this thread find this tool useful, I want to congratulate you on putting together something you're ready to share with the world. 2. I'd love to hear the story of what prompted you to create this tool. Was it an issue you had? Did you set out to make something easier? 3. Not everyth…

Definitely. As for the purpose of the tool and the issues, they will become clearer after the next couple of releases.

That's a deeply troubling non-answer right there.
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