what web based tool, to allow a non-technical user to manage authorized keys files on a Linux (fedora/centos/ubuntu/debian) server
- by Tom H
(Edit: clarification below)
We have a number of groups of developers that change frequently, and a security policy to require individual logins to servers using rsa or dsa public keys, which is achieved via the standard method of adding id_dsa.pub to their authorized keys file.
I am using chef to sync the user accounts across machines, however our previous method of using webmin to manage the user passwords is not designed for key based auth, and hence is not easy to use for non-technical users.
The developers are logging in from the WAN using ssh, they can either provide their own key, or an administrator will send them a private key.
The development machines are located in the cloud and we have a single server available to host the master set of accounts. Obviously I could deploy ldap or other centralised authentication system, but that seems a bit over blown when webmin worked well for the simple case.
It is easy to achieve synchronised users, groups and passwords across a bunch of low security development boxes using webmin clustered users and groups. However looking at the currently installed webmin it is not so easy to create the authorized keys as it is to create user accounts and passwords. (its possible, but its not easy - some functionality is in the usermin module, or would required some tedious steps)
Ideally I'd like a web interface that is pretty much dedicated to creating users and groups, and can generate key pairs on the fly, and can accepted pasted in public keys to add to the users authorized keys file.
If the tool sync'ed the users and keys as well, that would be great, but I can use chef to do that part if the accounts are created correctly on the "master" server.
