Key Management - Multiwriter

How do we want to manage keys for multiwriter?

Recently, we added the dat keys command for import & export (#828), multiwriter key management can build on that.

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Old Issue

We need some basic key management in the CLI. Right now its very hard to transfer ownership of a dat.

Add a dat keys command with some subcommands for importing/exporting keys:

• Export secret key
• Import secret key to another dat and make it writable

[maxogden]

After multiwriter lands:

• We should try to ensure that a private key is never being used in two places at once
• We should encourage provisioning of new keys when transferring devices (to avoid o/)
• We need a basic key management API for this, e.g.:
  • dat keys generate - adds a new keypair to the global key store, prints out the public key
  • dat owners add <key> [path-to-dat(default-cwd)] - adds a public key as an authorized writer to the current dat
  • dat keys ls - print out list of keypairs stored in global key store
  • dat keys rm <key> - delete a key from the global keystore
  • dat keys get <key> - print the keypair
  • dat keys add <pubkey> <privatekey> - add a keypair manually

So the workflow to transfer a dat between two machines (A to B) would be:

• On B, do dat keys generate. This places a private key in the global store. You copy paste the public key
• On A, do dat owners add <B's Pubkey> in the dat dir
• On B, clone the dat. You notice you own the private key for one of the owner pubkeys, so you flip the .ogd to true
• On A, run dat keys rm <key> to revoke your own ability to write (optional)

You can also transfer the original key (not recommended) by doing dat keys get <key> on A and then dat keys add on B

[genecyber]

Answered my own question. Yes I can. I did it! I can predict every future Dat address of mine now. Think… zipFs 😃