Is there a tool to convert private keys from Unix format to VMS format, and vice versa?

[David Lloyd_4]

Hi All,
Is there a tool to convert PRIVATE keys from UNIX format (OpenSSH) to VMS format (SSH.COM), and vice versa? I can do this with public keys, but I don't see anything for doing it with the private keys.

It irks me no end that there are different formats for authentication keys!

VMS 7.3-2, TCPIP 5.4 eco 6.
VMS 8.3, TCPIP 5.6
UNIX Sun Solaris 9.

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Didn't test it but putty key generator kan save private keys in ssh.com and openssh format.

Make shure the file is stream format on VMS and that contents looks the same.

Wim

[Steven Schweda]

I thought that "ssh-keygen -X" (or "-i",
depending on the version) on Solaris could
convert both files from the SSH2 format (VMS)
to the OpenSSH format. (At least if there's
no pass-phrase.)

Is there any more to this than a text editing
problem?

[Heinz W Genhart · Accepted solution]

Hi David

I had exactly same problem until today (It's solved now)

We have OpenSSH Keys on a sun solaris box. We would like to use the same Keys on OpenVMS too.

You can download the PuTTY source kit for unix here http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Then you have to untar this source kit with

tar -xvf putty-059.tar

This will unpack the kit.

To build it on Solaris change your directory to the unix directory in the unpacked tree. There you do

./configure
make

This will build the executables.

with

puttygen id_dsa -O private-sshcom -o id_dsa_vms
puttygen id_dsa -O public -o id_dsa_vms.pub

you can generate the required keys for OpenVMS. (id_dsa and id_dsa.pub are the openssh keys, id_dsa_vms and id_dsa_vms.pub are the SSH2 Keys for OpenVMS)

Then you must copy the VMS Keys to your OpenVMS machine. In Your ssh2 Subdirectory on OpenVMS you have to edit the two files Identification. and Authorization that they are looking like this:

$ typ AUTHORIZATION.
KEY ID_DSA_VMS.PUB

$ typ identification.
IdKey ID_DSA_VMS

You may have to apply changes to your ssh configurationfiles, so that allowedauthentications is publickey, if not allready done.

Hope that helps

regards

Geni

[David Lloyd_4]

Winner!

Thanks! That worked great. Much nicer than having to use Windows puttygen and push keys around.

For clarification, the only additional note I would add is that the above assumes that you have already generated your "unix" keys. Puttygen can do that as well.

Thanks again to all who helped!

--dave