PUBLICKEY(5)

🗝️ publickey(5) — public key database 🗝️

okay so bestie, this is publickey(5), a File Formats Manual page about the public key database, and it's giving secure RPC realness ✨ no cap.

💖 NAME 💖

publickey — public key database, periodt 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

/etc/publickey

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So /etc/publickey is the public key database used for secure RPC (Remote Procedure Calls) 🫶. It's literally where that data lives.

Each entry in the database consists of a network user name — which may either refer to a user or a hostname, iykyk — followed by the user's public key (in hex notation), a colon, and then the user's secret key encrypted with its login password (also in hex notation) 💖. Like, exact order, bestie: network user name, public key, colon, encrypted secret key.

This file is altered either by the user through the chkey(1) command or by the system administrator through the newkey(8) command 🔥. So yeah, it's not just a free-for-all.

important vibe check: /etc/publickey should only contain data on the NIS master machine, where it is converted into the NIS database publickey.byname 👑. That part is a big deal, fr fr.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• chkey(1)
• publickey(3)
• newkey(8)
• ypupdated(8)

okay that's the whole page, bestie 💅 this publickey(5) page is from Debian, dated October 19, 1987 — vintage but still slaying 🎀🦋