REQUEST-KEY(8)

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💅 REQUEST-KEY 💅

okay so bestie, this is the request-key page from the Linux Key Management Utilities section 8 (admin/system commands, iykyk). it's a kernel-callback situation and honestly it's giving backstage-pass energy — let's get into it 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

request-key — the lil program that handles key instantiation callback requests from the kernel 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

/sbin/request-key <op> <key> <uid> <gid> <threadring> <processring>
     <sessionring> [<info>]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so the kernel calls this program when someone asks it for a key and the kernel literally doesn't have it on hand. the kernel whips up a partially set up key, then calls out to this program to instantiate it. that's the whole vibe. it is not intended to be called directly — no cap, this is not a "you, personally, typing in a terminal" situation 🙈

however — and this is the fun part — for debugging purposes, it can be given some options on the command line:

  • -d — turns on debugging mode. in this mode, no attempts are made to access any keys and, if a handler program is selected, it won't be executed; instead, this program will print a message and exit 0. so it's all talk, zero action, iconic honestly 💅
  • -D — in debugging mode, use the proposed key description specified with this rather than the sample ("user;0;0;1f0000;debug:1234") built into the program. like, use your fake key description instead of the built-in fake one ✨
  • -l — use configuration from the current directory. the program will use request-key.d/* and request-key.conf from the current directory rather than from /etc. stay local, stay cozy 🏠
  • -n — don't log to the system log. ordinarily, error messages and debugging messages will be copied to the system log — this will prevent that. shy mode activated 🤫
  • -v — turn on debugging output. this may be specified multiple times to produce increasing levels of verbosity. stack it, girl, get as loud as you want 🔥
  • --version — print the program version and exit. just a quick "hi, who am I" moment 👑

💀 ERRORS 💀

all errors will be logged to the syslog. every single one. the syslog knows everything 😭

🦋 FILES 🦋

  • /etc/request-key.d/*.conf — individual configuration files 🌸
  • /etc/request-key.conf — fallback configuration file 💜

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

go read those next, bestie, the lore runs deep 🧚

ngl, -d and -D are your besties if you're poking at this — they let you see what would happen without actually touching any keys. use them, don't raw-dog a kernel callback 🙈

mwah 💋 this page is from the Linux Key Management Utilities, dated 15 Nov 2011, and it's REQUEST-KEY(8) in the man pages — old but iconic, periodt 👑

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