nix-super/perl/lib
Eelco Dolstra 0fdf4da0e9 Support cryptographically signed binary caches
NAR info files in binary caches can now have a cryptographic signature
that Nix will verify before using the corresponding NAR file.

To create a private/public key pair for signing and verifying a binary
cache, do:

  $ openssl genrsa -out ./cache-key.sec 2048
  $ openssl rsa -in ./cache-key.sec -pubout > ./cache-key.pub

You should also come up with a symbolic name for the key, such as
"cache.example.org-1".  This will be used by clients to look up the
public key.  (It's a good idea to number keys, in case you ever need
to revoke/replace one.)

To create a binary cache signed with the private key:

  $ nix-push --dest /path/to/binary-cache --key ./cache-key.sec --key-name cache.example.org-1

The public key (cache-key.pub) should be distributed to the clients.
They should have a nix.conf should contain something like:

  signed-binary-caches = *
  binary-cache-public-key-cache.example.org-1 = /path/to/cache-key.pub

If all works well, then if Nix fetches something from the signed
binary cache, you will see a message like:

  *** Downloading ‘http://cache.example.org/nar/7dppcj5sc1nda7l54rjc0g5l1hamj09j-subversion-1.7.11’ (signed by ‘cache.example.org-1’) to ‘/nix/store/7dppcj5sc1nda7l54rjc0g5l1hamj09j-subversion-1.7.11’...

On the other hand, if the signature is wrong, you get a message like

  NAR info file `http://cache.example.org/7dppcj5sc1nda7l54rjc0g5l1hamj09j.narinfo' has an invalid signature; ignoring

Signatures are implemented as a single line appended to the NAR info
file, which looks like this:

  Signature: 1;cache.example.org-1;HQ9Xzyanq9iV...muQ==

Thus the signature has 3 fields: a version (currently "1"), the ID of
key, and the base64-encoded signature of the SHA-256 hash of the
contents of the NAR info file up to but not including the Signature
line.

Issue #75.
2014-01-08 15:42:53 +01:00
..
Nix Support cryptographically signed binary caches 2014-01-08 15:42:53 +01:00