Matt Williams

Camp Counselor

Keeper Keypairs: You use them for everything and you are probably doing it wrong

Event Logo

Tuesday, July 25, 2023 - 7:30 PM UTC, for 1 hour.

AT THAT (In-Person Only) Regular, 60 minute presentation

Room: C

pki
key pairs
security
ssh

I saw a tweet recently from an experienced dev who still has to look up how to post a public key to GitHub every time they do it. This stuff isn't hard, but it's harder than it should be, especially considering how useful those keys can be and how much they protect you. You see them when signing your GitHub commits, SSH'ing to your hosts, creating and connecting with a VPN, and more. In this session, we will look at a lot of the ways you can use Public Key Cryptography (and probably are already using it) and why using one key for life for everything is a bad approach. But doing it right can be painful without the right tools. So, we will look at some 100% free and open-source tools for getting this right and how to make everything easier. By the end of this session you will be a Key Pair Pro with learnings that will help you for the rest of your career or even with your home lab.

Prerequisites

Having some experience with SSH or Github will be nice.

Take Aways

  • How to use key pairs in interesting ways
  • How to not shoot yourself in the foot with bad keypair habits

Supporting Resources

favorited by:
Matt Payne Dan Willman Matthew Ives