A2ID-LOADKEY(1)

💅 a2id-loadkey(1) — like, the preload a key girlie of ARPA2 Signed Identities

okay so real talk, this is a2id-loadkey(1), a System Management Command, and she is very specific about her whole thing. buckle up bestie 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

a2id-loadkey keyname fd program args...

a2id-loadkey /path/to/file.key fd program args...

two whole forms, both iconic, both doing the exact same job with a different address for the key 💖

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so before it even runs program, it preloads the key for ARPA2 Identity Signing into file descriptor fd — and here's the main character detail: program can only read it once. that's it. one shot. ✨ to make that happen, the key gets passed through a pipeline from a2id-loadkey to program.

ngl, program can impose further restrictions on itself before it reads the pipeline — lowkey responsible of it — but it cannot reverse that single attempt to read from it. the one-read thing is, like, load-bearing. 💀

when you use the form with a keyname, the directory /var/lib/arpa2/identity is used as a key repository for the system, with files only accessible to the root user 🔒. an extension then gets added to the keyname. and it's customary to have a key named default stored in /var/lib/arpa2/identity/default.key to serve most purposes — that's the go-to, the default girlie, the main character key 👑

applications must load keys explicitly, fr fr — the default key store is merely a convention to get that started, not magic. the function a2id_addkey() is what you use to setup a new key. programs may open a file descriptor to the key(s) to pass and harvest them after dropping privileges 🫶. and an even stronger mechanism is to do this key passing through a pipe — it fits into the pipe, and it can only be read once by the program at a lower privilege. that's the whole vibe check: drop privileges first, then read. 💅

multiple keys may be loaded, for instance to permit verification of signatures with older keys, while default.key is used for signing 🦋. to achieve this, just invoke a2id-loadkey again as part of the program. easy. iconic. periodt.

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🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

written by Rick van Rein of OpenFortress.nl, for the ARPA2.net project 🫡

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🔥 REPORTING BUGS 🔥

for any discussion, including about bugs, please use the https://gitlab.com/arpa2/arpa2common/ project page for ARPA2 Common. they use its issue tracker to track bugs and feature requests — so like, put it there, not in my DMs 🙈

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright © 2021 Rick van Rein, ARPA2.net.

ARPA2 is funded from InternetWide.org, which in turn receives funding from various sources 💸. this particular work was funded through a grant of SIDNfonds — a public interest fund geared towards a better Internet for all — and paid by administration fees for .nl domain names 🇳🇱✨

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• a2id-keygen(8) — go make yourself a key first, bestie

ARPA2 Common is documented on http://common.arpa2.net/ and its code is on https://gitlab.com/arpa2/arpa2common/ 🌟

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mwah 💋 this page came to you from ARPA2.net, dated June 2021 — go preload some keys responsibly, ily, bye 🧚💖