Bug #52804 [Opn->Bgs]: ssh2_auth_pubkey_file() requires both public and private keys

Edit report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52804&edit=1 ID: 52804 Updated by: pajoye@php.net Reported by: ron at roncemer dot com Summary: ssh2_auth_pubkey_file() requires both public and private keys -Status: Open +Status: Bogus Type: Bug Package: *General Issues Operating System: Linux PHP Version: 5.3.3 Block user comment: N New Comment: Please report ssh2 at pecl, http://pecl.php.net/ssh2 Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2010-09-09 19:21:25] ron at roncemer dot com Description: ------------ Every other ssh client I've ever dealt with, only requires the private key to authenticate to a remote server with ssh2. Have a look at the ganymed Java SSH2 library, class name ch.ethz.ssh2.Connection, function signature "boolean authenticateWithPublicKey(java.lang.String user, java.io.File pemFile, java.lang.String password)". All that is needed is the private-key pem file in order to authenticate. I've been using this library for years in Java, and it works great. What is the reason for requiring both the public and private keys for authenticating, when in reality only the private key is required? The public key should be easily extracted from private key, and should be handled silently by PHP. Also, have a look at function signature "boolean authenticateWithPublicKey(java.lang.String user, char[] pemPrivateKey, java.lang.String password)". This provides a way to pass in the private key as an array of char. In PHP, this would be really useful. You could store your private keys in a secured database and use it for all kinds of server authentication. The absence of this functionality in PHP actually presents a security risk, because to get it to work, you'd actually have to write your private key to a temp file, then delete the temp file when done. Not as secure as reading it from a string which came from a secure database. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52804&edit=1