SSH Certification Authority as Plugin for WaTTS

Description

In the European Project INDIGO DataCloud [0] we implement authentication and authorization services for the Cloud and for orchestration services to spin up a huge number of virtual servers on demand.

Some users need to get access to these VMs via SSH. Remote access to VMs is usually done through the secure shell (ssh [1]).

Managing all the permissions in a very dynamic environment is hard.

The goal of this project is to develop a plugin for WaTTS [2], the INDIGO Token Translation Service, that functions as a SSH-CA, so that only one public key needs to be deployed on all VMs.

Tasks

• understanding ssh-ca
• getting familiar with WaTTS and how to implement a plugin
• implement the plugin

Requirements

• good knowledge of Linux
• working with the command line
• programming experience e.g. python or go

References

[0] https://www.indigo-datacloud.eu/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell

[2] https://www.gitbook.com/book/indigo-dc/token-translation-service/details

[3] https://watts-dev.data.kit.edu

[3] https://github.com/cloudtools/ssh-cert-authority

Contact

Bas.Wegh@kit.edu