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[[meta title="The Monkeysphere Project"]]

The Monkeysphere Project

The Monkeysphere project's goal is to extend OpenPGP's web of trust to new areas of the Internet to help us securely identify each other while we work online.

Specifically, monkeysphere currently offers a framework to leverage the OpenPGP web of trust for OpenSSH authentication.

In other words, it allows you to use secure shell as you normally do, but to identify yourself and the servers you administer or connect to with your OpenPGP keys. OpenPGP keys are tracked via GnuPG, and monkeysphere manages the known_hosts and authorized_keys files used by OpenSSH for authentication, checking them for cryptographic validity.

Overview

Everyone who has used secure shell is familiar with the prompt given the first time you log in to a new server, asking if you want to trust the server's key by verifying the key fingerprint. Unfortunately, unless you have access to the server's key fingerprint through a secure out-of-band channel, there is no way to verify that the fingerprint you are presented with is in fact that of the server you're really trying to connect to.

Many users also take advantage of OpenSSH's ability to use RSA or DSA keys for authenticating to a server (known as "PubkeyAuthentication"), rather than relying on a password exchange. But again, the public part of the key needs to be transmitted to the server through a secure out-of-band channel (usually via a separate password-based SSH connection or a (hopefully signed) e-mail to the system administrator) in order for this type of authentication to work.

OpenSSH currently provides a functional way to manage the RSA and DSA keys required for these interactions through the known_hosts and authorized_keys files. However, it lacks any type of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that can verify that the keys being used really are the one required or expected.

The basic idea of the Monkeysphere is to create a framework that uses GnuPG's keyring manipulation capabilities and public keyserver communication to manage the keys that OpenSSH uses for connection authentication.

The Monkeysphere therefore provides an effective PKI for OpenSSH, including the possibility for key transitions, transitive identifications, revocations, and expirations. It also actively invites broader participation in the OpenPGP web of trust.

Under the Monkeysphere, both parties to an OpenSSH connection (client and server) explicitly designate who they trust to certify the identity of the other party. These trust designations are explicitly indicated with traditional GPG keyring trust models. Monkeysphere then manages the keys in the known_hosts and authorized_keys files directly, in such a way that is completely transparent to ssh. No modification is made to the SSH protocol on the wire (it continues to use raw RSA public keys), and no modification is needed to the OpenSSH software.

To emphasize: no modifications to SSH are required to use the Monkeysphere. OpenSSH can be used as is; completely unpatched and "out of the box".

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