NAME

Net::SSH::Perl::Auth::RSA - Perform RSA authentication

SYNOPSIS

    use Net::SSH::Perl::Auth;
    my $auth = Net::SSH::Perl::Auth->new('RSA', $ssh);
    print "Valid auth" if $auth->authenticate;

DESCRIPTION

Net::SSH::Perl::Auth::RSA performs RSA authentication with a remote sshd server. When you create a new RSA auth object, you give it an $ssh object, which should contain an open connection to an ssh daemon, as well as any data that the authentication module needs to proceed. In this case, for example, the $ssh object might contain a list of RSA identity files (see the docs for Net::SSH::Perl).

The authenticate method tries to load the user's public and private keys, for each of the files listed as identity files. If you haven't listed any identity files, $ENV{HOME}/.ssh/identity is used by default. For each identity, authenticate enters into a dialog with the sshd server.

The client sends the public key to the server, then waits for a challenge. Once this challenge is received, the client must decrypt the challenge using the private key (loaded from the identity file). When loading the private key, you may need to enter a passphrase to decrypt the private key itself; first authenticate tries to decrypt the key using an empty passphrase (which requires no user intervention). If this fails, the client checks to see if it's running in an interactive session. If so, it queries the user for a passphrase, which is then used to decrypt the private key. If the session is non-interactive and the private key cannot be loaded, the client simply sends a dummy response to the RSA challenge, to comply with the SSH protocol.

Otherwise, if the private key has been loaded, and the challenge decrypted, the client sends its response to the server, then waits for success or failure.

AUTHOR & COPYRIGHTS

Please see the Net::SSH::Perl manpage for author, copyright, and license information.