NAME

Crypt::SKey - Perl S/Key calculator

SYNOPSIS

  # In perl script:
  use Crypt::SKey qw(compute);
  $output = compute($sequence_num, $seed, $password);
  @output = compute($sequence_num, $seed, $password, $count);
  
  # Command line:
  perl -MCrypt::SKey -e key 500 fo099804
  perl -MCrypt::SKey -e key 500 fo099804 100
  perl -MCrypt::SKey=key_md4 -e key_md4 500 fo099804
  
  # The following shell alias may be useful:
  alias key 'perl -MCrypt::SKey -e key'
  # This allows you to simply type:
  key 500 fo099804

DESCRIPTION

This module contains a simple S/Key calculator (as described in RFC 1760) implemented in Perl. It exports the function "key" by default, and may optionally export the function "compute".

"compute_md4", "compute_md5", "compute_sha1", "key_md4", "key_md5", and "key_sha1" are provided as convenience functions for selecting MD4, MD5, or SHA1 hashes. The default is MD4; this may be changed with with the $Crypt::SKey::HASH variable, assigning it the value of "MD4", "MD5", or "SHA1". You can access any of these functions by exporting them in the same manner as "compute" in the above example.

Most S/Key systems use MD4 hashing, but a few (notably OPIE) use MD5.

INSTALLATION

Follow the usual steps for installing any Perl module:

  perl Makefile.PL
  make test
  make install

FUNCTIONS

"compute($sequence_num, $seed, $password [, $count])"

"compute_md4($sequence_num, $seed, $password [, $count])"

"compute_md5($sequence_num, $seed, $password [, $count])"

"compute_sha1($sequence_num, $seed, $password [, $count])"

Given three arguments, computes the hash value and returns it as a string containing six words separated by spaces (or as a string of 16 hex digits if $Crypt::SKey::HEX is set to a true value). If $count is specified and greater than one, returns a list of several such strings. The meanings of the arguments is as follows:

sequence_number
Which output in the sequence of calculated S/Key responses to generate. This is called "N" in RFC 1760. It will usually be the first number shown in an S/Key challenge.
seed
This is a random seed. It is usually the second number/string shown in an S/Key challenge.
password
This is your secret password.
count
This argument is optional and defaults to 1. It specifies the number of S/Key responses to generate. This may be useful if you want to pre-generate a bunch of responses and print them on a piece of paper so that you don't need to have an S/Key calculator around later.

"key()"

"key_md4()"

"key_md5()"

"key_sha1()"

Acts just like the 'key' executable program that comes with the standard distribution of s/key. Reads several arguments from the command line (@ARGV), prompts for the user's password, and prints one or more calculated s/key responses to "STDOUT". The command line arguments are, in order:

sequence_number
seed
count (optional)

Their meanings are exactly the same as with the "compute" function above.

NOTES

If you care about security, you'd probably be better off using SSH than S/Key, because SSH encrypts your entire session whereas S/Key only encrypts your password. I wrote this module because nobody else seemed to have done it yet, and because sometimes I'm on systems with neither SSH nor the "key" program, but I want to telnet to a system that offers S/Key password transmission.

The original "key" program takes the "count" parameter using the "-n" flag, but this version takes it as an optional final argument. Unless I hear from someone that needs the behavior changed, I'm not likely to add the "-n" flag.

I currently have no plans to write any code that checks the validity of S/Key responses at login, i.e. the code that the server has to run when authenticating users. It shouldn't be hard, though, and if someone wants to send me a patch implementing this functionality I'll be happy to add it.

AUTHOR

Ken Williams, kwilliams@cpan.org

Thanks to Chris Nandor and Allen Chen for testing MD5 functionality.

COPYRIGHT

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.