PkgVerifierPrototype

Prototype package signing system for Julia. Please note that for the moment this is UNIX-only, though it is easily portable to Windows as well.

Todo:

Write PRNG code and build for Windows.

Setup

Install the following packages

Pkg.clone("https://github.com/LachlanGunn/TweetNaCl")
Pkg.clone("https://github.com/PkgVerifierPrototype")

Pkg.build("TweetNaCl")

We use the TweetNaCl library---http://tweetnacl.cr.yp.to/---for signature operations; this is included in the package above.

Example

To set up the test repository, perform the following commands:

using PkgVerifierPrototype

# Change this to wherever you would like.
repo = "/path/to/empty/directory/"

create_signature_repository(repo)
create_user(repo, "user1")
create_user(repo, "user2")

Permissions are set as a list of directories.

create_user_certificate(repo, "user1", ["Project1A", "Project1B", "PkgVerifierPrototype"])
create_user_certificate(repo, "user2", ["Project2"])

We can check whether a user has access to a path:

julia> verify_user_access(repo, "user1", "/Project1A/filename")
true

julia> verify_user_access(repo, "user1", "/Project2/filename")
false

Or we can sign some data:

julia> cert = construct_data_certificate(repo, "user1", "Hello, World!")
julia> open_data_certificate(repo, cert)
"Hello, World!"

Better yet, sign a package:

julia> cert = construct_package_certificate(repo, "user1", "PkgVerifierPrototype")
julia> verify_package_certificate(repo, cert)

But change the contents of the package---try adding an empty file---and it will throw an error:

julia> verify_package_certificate(repo, cert)
ERROR: Package verification failed.
 in verify_package_certificate at /home/lachlan/.julia/v0.5/PkgVerifierPrototype/src/PkgVerifierPrototype.jl:271
 in eval at ./boot.jl:264

There is a serverside component as well---see https://github.com/LachlanGunn/PkgVerifierServerPrototype---to which we can connect:

julia> sign_package_to_url(repo, "user1", "PkgVerifierPrototype", "http://localhost:8000")
julia> verify_package_from_url(repo, "PkgVerifierPrototype", "http://localhost:8000")

Repository documentation

This is just a test system, and all keys are available at all times. We have not yet implemented intermediate authorities.

Keys

Keys are stored in a JSON as Base64-encoded text. The file format is

 { "public": "ThePublicKeyInBase64==", "secret": "TheSecretKey" }

The "masterkeys" directory contains the root key for the repository; this key, in the file "secret.key" signs all user certificates.

User keys are stored in the "userkeys" directory, with the filename being given by "{name}.key". The format is as above; the name here is used merely for lookup purposes, however it is included in the permission certificates and thus will be validated anyway.

User Certificates

Permissions are determined by certificates signed by the master key. These are stored in "repo/certificates", and their format will be described shortly. It is the "repo" directory that is to resemble what will be accessible to the public.

Each certificate takes the name "repo/certificates/{name}.cert", and is once again a JSON file. These are slightly more complicated, however. The format is as follows:

   { "authority": "MasterPublicKeyInBase64==",
     "certificate": "SignedCertificateInBase64==" } .

Software verifying the certificate checks that the public key included in the certificate is trusted, and then uses it to verify and unpack the signed data included in the "cetificate" field. This reveals another set of JSON data:

{ "user": "UserPublicKeyInBase64==",
  "name": "UserName",
  "directories": ["/DirectoryWithAccess", "/Another/Directory"] }

This allows a package to verify that a user has permission to sign files under various paths.

Data Certificates

Users can sign pieces of data, yielding a data certificate. This takes the following form:

{ "signer":      "UserPublicKeyInBase64==",
  "certificate": { ... user certificate ... },
  "data":        "SignedDataInBase64==" }

Package Certificates

Package certificates are a particular type of data certificate, containing a structure of the following form:

{ "package" : "PackageName",
  "hashes"  : [ [ "FileName", "HashInHex", "HashType"], ... ] }

Filenames are relative to the package root returned by dir("PackageName"), and exclude .git directories. HashType is always "SHA-512".

LachlanGunn / PkgVerifierPrototype

readme