Access via SSH key

Post#1 by **Chillkroete** » 17 Jul 2023, 06:28

Hi everybody,

I am intended to controm my Porteus Kiosk operated touchscreen via Home Assistant. Unfortunately there is no Home Assistant integration yet.
Therefore I plan to use SSH in order to perform Reboot, Shutdown, Screen on/off, brightness control, etc.

I activated SSH and with the password I set everything woks fine via putty. Unfortunately Home Assistant does not allow SSH password authentification. Instead I am obliged to use an SSH key and need to place my public key within Porteus Kiosk.

Can anybody let me know if and how this works? Where do I need to place the public Key?

Thanks and kindest regards,
Chillkroete

Post#2 by **fanthom** » 17 Jul 2023, 08:17

This feature is not supported in the base kiosk system.

I have moved the topic to an appropriate forum category.

Post#3 by **Chillkroete** » 17 Jul 2023, 11:59

Thanks.
Appreciated, if somebody could help me in how to modify the ISO file in order to establish SSH-connection via SSH-key

Post#4 by **Chillkroete** » 19 Jul 2023, 14:55

Without too much of Linux knowledge, my approach is:

Generate SSH key via Putty and save it in a file file "authorized_keys"

Create a module named SSHkey.xzm which copies the file "authorized_keys" to "/home/root/.ssh/authorized_keys"

Include SSHkey.xzm in my ISO file and extract it to my USB stick via Balena Etcher

Does this proceeding makes sense?
I am especcially uncertain, if authorized_keys file can be processed by Porteus Kiosk and if the path is correct.

Thanks and kindest regards

Post#5 by **Grisu1** » 29 Aug 2023, 19:05

3 things would have to be done:

1. set openSSH service for key authentication (/etc/ssh/sshd_config).
2. be able to add a pubkey to the central configuration.
3. the key should then be written to authorized_keys

That would be a good security gain
Would be nice if this could be added to the very well done distro.