On Sat, Oct 21, 2006 at 10:04:19PM +0200, Per-Olov Sj??holm wrote: > Here is a post with info that solves and explain the case if someone else get > stuck in the problem. > > This problem was actually caused by an updated OpenSSL. I have had 2048 and > 4096 SSH keys that have worked perfect until my last complete 3-9 -stable > update. > > In OpenSSL the limit is 3kbit for DSA keys and 16k for RSA keys. These days > ssh-keygen won't let you generate DSA keys other than 1024 bit ones (which is > all the FIPS-186-2 spec allows) so if you want larger keys then you should > use RSA. The thing that actually caused the problem was an openssl update > earlier (013_openssl2.patch or its equivalent in -stable), but it didn't > become apparent until sshd was rebuilt with the new openssl. > > > Thanks you *very* much for the help Darren Tucker!
This is excellent news for me since I was investigating an ssh breakage problem in FreeBSD and I could point my finger at OpenSSL but not proceed further since I had other things to do in life. :-) But there are some things not clear to me from what you are saying. It will be great if you can help. You mean to say that newer versions of OpenSSL do not allow you to create DSA keys longer than 1024 bits, but then isn't there an export and a non export version? I am assuming that all this FIPS/export etc. are some political crap that gets in the way of people wanting to use strong crypto. Now, the problem with RSA is that it used to be patent encumbered (well) and even now I prefer DSA over RSA for whatever reason. Now what? Looks to me there are some holes in your analysis. Thanks. regards, Girish
