x/crypto/ssh: malformed SSH identity - parse error in message type 0

[flotester]

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

$ go version: 1.18

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

Yes

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

$ go env: all

What did you do?

Using FiloSottile age cli tool under the conditions listed, an error was encountered: age version: v1.0.0 ssh key used (With Passphrase): ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f age-ssh -a 100 -Z "chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com"

$ age -d -i age-ssh test.txt.age > test_decrypted.txt
$ age: error: reading "age-ssh": malformed SSH identity in "age-ssh": ssh: parse error in message type 0

For further details please see this issue: https://github.com/FiloSottile/age/issues/407

Narrowing down the problem I have investigated some more and found some conditions under which the problem occurs:

The problem does not occur with keys generated like this:

ssh-keygen -f key -t ed25519 -Z 3des-cbc (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -t ed25519 -Z aes128-cbc (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -t ed25519 -Z aes192-cbc (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -t ed25519 -Z aes256-cbc (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -t ed25519 -Z aes128-ctr (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -t ed25519 -Z aes192-ctr (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -t ed25519 -Z aes256-ctr (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -Z aes256-ctr (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -Z aes256-ctr (without password) ssh-keygen -f key -Z aes128-gcm@openssh.com (without password) ssh-keygen -f key -Z aes256-gcm@openssh.com (without password) ssh-keygen -f key -Z chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com (without password) The problem does occur with keys generated like this:

ssh-keygen -f key -t ed25519 -Z aes128-gcm@openssh.com (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -t ed25519 -Z aes256-gcm@openssh.com (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -t ed25519 -Z chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com (with password) ssh-keygen -f key -Z chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com (with password)

It seems to me like the problem only occurs when using the ciphers aes128-gcm@openssh.com, aes256-gcm@openssh.com and chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com and only when using a password protected key. The type of key seems to be irrelevant.

What did you expect to see?

A decrypted file with no cli errors

What did you see instead?

The error message mentioned above instead Note: Encryption seemed to work fine in this instance

[codesoap]

I'm not familiar with the code, but there seem to be some trailing, unprocessed bytes in the key which lead to the error. I can see that in other places in the library a "Rest" attribute is used to catch such trailing bytes. If the same is done here, the original error disappears:

diff --git a/ssh/keys.go b/ssh/keys.go
index 1c7de1a..659fd63 100644
--- a/ssh/keys.go
+++ b/ssh/keys.go
@@ -1261,6 +1261,7 @@ func parseOpenSSHPrivateKey(key []byte, decrypt openSSHDecryptFunc) (crypto.Priv
                NumKeys      uint32
                PubKey       []byte
                PrivKeyBlock []byte
+               Rest         []byte `ssh:"rest"`
        }

        if err := Unmarshal(remaining, &w); err != nil {

However, in place of the old error, there will be a new one which clarifies the underlying problem:

ssh: unknown cipher "chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com", only supports "aes256-ctr" or "aes256-cbc"

[cherrymui]

cc @FiloSottile @rolandshoemaker

[caarlos0]

How can I help moving this forward?

[drakkan]

How can I help moving this forward?

@caarlos0 I think the first step is to add the Rest attribute to openSSHEncryptedPrivateKey so we return at least a proper error. If you want to send a CL to add support for other ciphers I will be glad to review it. Thank you