[arch-dev-public] Automatic Signing of ISOs, pacman databases and everything else (was: Arch Linux Cloud Images (virtualbox and Qemu))

[Bruno Pagani]

Le 15/05/2018 à 17:25, Florian Pritz via arch-dev-public a écrit :

> On 13.05.2018 22:47, Christian Rebischke via arch-dev-public wrote:
>> We could just generate an automated cloud image signing key (only for
>> this purpose) of course and automatically sign the images with that key.
>> Problem with this is: If our build server ever get pwned the person will
>> have these keys for signing cloud images as well. Any opinion about
>> this?
> We had that discussion some years ago about signing our pacman
> databases. I mostly remember that we didn't reach a consensus, but you
> might want to search the archives for details. At some point there was a
> proposal to have a dedicated signing host that is well protected and
> receives files and then returns the signature. I'm not sure if that was
> turned down or if there was simply nobody to work on this. Does anyone
> remember that?
>
> I think this would be a viable option for us. We could also implement
> some form of rate limiting and sanity checks to ensure we only sign
> things that we want to sign. For example, only one ISO can be signed per
> month and the request must come from a specific IP. I probably won't do
> any implementation, but I'd offer to provide feedback and design help if
> someone wants to work on this. Assuming we first agree that we want to
> do it this way.

To me this is quite a good idea. :)

I had a bit more sophisticated design in mind, where the signing host
/retrieves/ the file to be signed (so that the connection is initiated
from it, not toward it) by having the filename added to some text file
on an other (almost?) dedicated host (so that having access to the hosts
where the DB/iso/whatever are built is not enough and vice-versa, see
just after), text file that the signing host would be watching a way or
another (but should be in an authenticated way). Of course you need to
restrict what kind of files can be retrieved from what host (like you
proposed for the request coming from a specified IP).

The goal of this setup is to have no open port on the signing host,
requiring physical/IPMI access to it to make any change.

But maybe that does not bring much more than your setup, while adding
much more complexity…

Just as you, I cannot help on implementing, but I can offer ideas and
design feedback if anyone want to take this task in charge.

Regards,
Bruno

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