How to convert RSA key to ssh-rsa

Question

I am trying to convert a generated public RSA key to a SSH using Apples security framework.

Here is the code I am using for generating the key pairs:

- (void)generatePrivateKey {
    NSDictionary *privateKeyAttr = @{(__bridge id)kSecAttrIsPermanent: @YES,
                                     (__bridge id)kSecAttrApplicationTag: self.privateTag};
    NSDictionary *publicKeyAttr = @{(__bridge id)kSecAttrIsPermanent: @YES,
                                    (__bridge id)kSecAttrApplicationTag: self.publicTag};


    NSDictionary *keyPairAttr = @{(__bridge id)kSecAttrKeySizeInBits: @1024,
                                  (__bridge id)kSecAttrKeyType: (__bridge id)kSecAttrKeyTypeRSA,
                                  (__bridge id)kSecPrivateKeyAttrs: privateKeyAttr,
                                  (__bridge id)kSecPublicKeyAttrs: publicKeyAttr};

    SecKeyRef publicKey;
    SecKeyRef privateKey;

    SecKeyGeneratePair((__bridge CFDictionaryRef)keyPairAttr, &publicKey, &privateKey);
}

- (NSString *)getPublicKey {
    NSString *contents = [self keyForTag:self.publicTag];
    return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"-----BEGIN RSA PUBLIC KEY-----\n%@\n-----END RSA PUBLIC KEY-----", contents];
}

- (NSString *)getPrivateKey {
    NSString *contents = [self keyForTag:self.privateTag];
    return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----\n%@\n-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----", contents];
}

- (NSString *)keyForTag:(NSData *)tag {
    NSDictionary *queryKey = @{(__bridge id)kSecClass: (__bridge id)kSecClassKey,
                                      (__bridge id)kSecAttrApplicationTag: tag,
                                      (__bridge id)kSecAttrKeyType: (__bridge id)kSecAttrKeyTypeRSA,
                                      (__bridge id)kSecReturnData: @YES};

    // Get the key bits.
    CFDataRef keyBits;
    OSStatus sanityCheck = SecItemCopyMatching((__bridge CFDictionaryRef)queryKey, (CFTypeRef *)&keyBits);
    NSData *passDat = (__bridge_transfer NSData *)keyBits;

    if (sanityCheck != noErr) {
        passDat = nil;
    }

    NSString *contents = [passDat base64EncodedStringWithOptions:NSDataBase64Encoding64CharacterLineLength];
    return contents;
}

Then I end up with a private key like this:

Putting this into ssh-keygen produces the following public key:

$ ssh-keygen -f test.p12 -y
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAAAgQC7VWIi0kXyx/UCGG91iGqKjohRLIj9hp44Xwd/pIApBHo38/noUeqN07S4oGgx47zZthg3zKFP90eEdKKOXZ0yuQKOy+yB5YAYg7e9FVvxfXCOVrGaZohh37HLUql/bdOzTK6/Upjl0ZZNYpxWyfIZ/8jKCAaTG6BhPQhLmWxCQw==

My question is how to do the ssh-keygen with the Apple Security framework or OpenSSH?

UPDATE:

I am now using OpenSSL directly and get a valid RSA key. However the conversion is still not working correctly:

- (NSString *)publicKey {
    RSA *rsa = self.rsaPrivateKey;

    // Encode the "ssh-rsa" string
    NSMutableData *sshrsa = [[NSMutableData alloc] init];
    const char start[] = {0, 0, 0, 7, 's', 's', 'h', '-', 'r', 's', 'a'};
    [sshrsa appendBytes:start length:sizeof(start)];

    // Encode the RSA encoding exponent e
    {
        const char *e = BN_bn2dec(rsa->e);
        NSString *length = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%04lu", strlen(e)] ;
        [sshrsa appendData:[length dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
        [sshrsa appendBytes:e length:strlen(e)];
    }

    // Encode the RSA modul n
    {
        const char *n = BN_bn2dec(rsa->n);
        NSString *length = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%04lu", strlen(n)] ;
        [sshrsa appendData:[length dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
        [sshrsa appendBytes:n length:strlen(n)];
    }

    return [sshrsa base64EncodedStringWithOptions:NSDataBase64EncodingEndLineWithCarriageReturn];;
}

The new key is

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAAG4AAAATYwvdcavn8AALOV1CoAAAAG4HHTGr5/AAAwyNcavn8AAPAq1xq+fwAAkPBhBwEAAAC2hnJUVxt7AO3JLixNzOwBALilG75/AABQsaUbvn8AAJC2pRu+fwAAELGlG75/AABZVMwDAQAAAECupRu+fwAAsJsHXP9/AAAIC7kDAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHB3QAAAAAAA2IRA8A/wGr5/AAAAUvAavn8AAJBV4xq+fwAAAFLwGr5/AACQc4Ybvn8AAABS8Bq+fwAAAI4CHr5/AACQc4Ybvn8AAJBzhhu+fwAA4DGwG75/AACfAZIEAQAAAABS8Bq+fwAAUACBG75/AAA9j24JAQAAAFAAgRu+fwAAAFLwGr5/AADgMbAbvn8AAAAAAAAAAAAA4A==

which is way longer than it should be:

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAAAgQC+gK0cEEgn/dDk+Sf/AdQtHp2rJoG7DxMuw2hL0+96rdKeixXVXWCE8GqMg7xIU8kSn0lrfcCJDhVBkArmlnlrZDfv1lTItBU7PvV4eDLT+3kApoqYMUmmo/ecDRyAaaOecoVZTl27RZghXcS7yxABlbVhYLzJEywOi46A9yBMFQ==

Could you update how did you end up generating the SSH key?. I am stuck with the same problem as you ;( — Jason Nam, Jul 22 '16 at 13:23

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 07 '21 at 10:53

Meta: At least part of an answer, but I don't know ObjC so making CW for improvement.

Note: This is nearly a duplicate of Convert pem key to ssh-rsa format except that is in C not ObjC, and it starts from a publickey file instead of a privatekey file -- but OpenSSL's in-memory structure for an RSA key is the same for a publickey or privatekey, with privatekey-specific fields ignored for a publickey. And it can be improved.

Your code (apparently) generates a length value in decimal as 4 digits and a decimal representation of the magnitude (without sign since the value is always positive) for each of e and n, but unbase64'ing your posted output doesn't show any of these actually included in the result, which after the correct initial part matching your start appears to be garbage, and I don't know why. You may need some ObjC debugging help there.

Anyway, the correct encoding is 4-byte binary (bigendian) length, followed by a binary bigendian representation of the value in two's complement, which requires adding a leading zero byte for a positive number in the range 2^8k/2 to 2^8k-1; this is usually the case for n because RSA key size is usually chosen a multiple of 8 (actually a power of 2 or small multiple thereof). e is rarely chosen this way although it can be. See "string" and "mpint" in https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4251#section-5 .

You can do this as in #1011572 by calling BN_bn2bin to get the binary bigendian magnitude into a large-enough buffer, then encode the 4-byte length, possible 1-byte sign and magnitude, again into a large-enough buffer. Or OpenSSL can actually do much of this for you; call BN_bn2mpi with a large-enough buffer and it will do the length, possible sign and magnitude.

How to allocate and manage the buffer(s?) in ObjC I leave to you or someone else. Do note that both the length fields and the value parts can and frequently will use the zero byte as a valid byte value; it must not be treated as a terminator or otherwise special. A little googling suggests to me this may be a problem for NSString but I could easily be wrong.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 23 '15 at 15:54

0

Whatever ssh-keygen does it will probably be SSH specific and Apple's Security framework might not cover that.

It might be worth to check what do_print_public in ssh-keygen.c and write_key in key.c does and just copy that.

Or consider using libssh2's libssh2_userauth_publickey_fromfile function.

answered Jun 23 '15 at 15:54

Marcel Jackwerth

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I put an update on my question as it is still not working. I can't figure out where ssh-keygen does the transformation. When I use the same code I end up with something completely different. – btype Jun 26 '15 at 13:50

How to convert RSA key to ssh-rsa

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