PowerShell / PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH

Load ssh-agent keys from MS-CAPI

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Description

One of the major advantages of running ssh-agent on windows would be to authenticate using key material already securely stored in MS-CAPI. Please take advantage of this.

Similar functionality was created in a forked version of PuTTY called PuTTY-CAC:
https://github.com/risacher/putty-cac

PuTTY-CAC was created to allow users to authenticate ssh sessions using the key material of a certificate on a smartcard. This allows them to use an agent where their private key is never even exposed to the local machine. However, it works using any certificate private key available to the user in MS-CAPI.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the PuTTY-CAC project linked in the issue and the Win32-OpenSSH ssh-agent implementation. Determine how MS-CAPI certificate keys can support authentication without exposing private key material; done means ssh-agent can use eligible MS-CAPI keys for SSH sessions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c
Domain
authentication, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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