Mac Store Core Tunnel Private SSH Keys and iCloud

[uther (George)]

I upgraded to Mac App Store Core Tunnel today. I imported my configuration from 1.1.2 and all my connections are correct. I set up sync with iCloud.

Several of my connections are the same on different computers, but I use a unique key on each computer. When the configurations sync with iCloud, the most recently used private key name is used, which is not correct for each computer. I have to manually change the key on the connection I want to use which then syncs to iCloud.

My humble suggestion would be to disable this by behavior all together as I believe it would be more secure. Alternatively, you could have an option in preferences to disable this behavior.

[yang (Yang.Y)]

Please set Configuration option to System by following this topic:

Use system default `ssh_config` and `known_hosts` configuration

By default, Core Tunnel uses configuration files in its own container folder: # known_hosts ~/Library/Group Containers/E78WKS7W4U.io.coressh.ssh/.ssh/known_hosts # ssh_config ~/Library/Group Containers/E78WKS7W4U.io.coressh.ssh/.ssh/config This works very well in most of cases. But if you have a lengthy ~/.ssh/config or /etc/ssh/ssh_config, or have StrictHostKeyChecking set to yes and use ~/.ssh/known_hosts, /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts as the only source data trusted host keys, you may want to u…

The MAS version of Core Tunnel should act exactly same as non-MAS version after set this option.

[uther (George)]

Yang, are you sure you understand what I am referring to? I think you are replying to the other post I submitted Mac Store Core Tunnel StrictHostKeyCheck.

My question is about iCloud syncing and the Private Key name being overwritten by other Core Tunnel clients that are also syncing to iCloud.

[yang (Yang.Y)]

I understand the question, but sorry for didn’t expand on the answer.

Set tunnel’s “Private Key” option to Disable, and clear the IdentityFile option value in Advanced tab of tunnel’s settings.

Then change to use System configuration in Preferences… > Locations.

Edit your ~/.ssh/config file, use IdentityFile directive to configure your keys, and make sure they point to different key file on each of your Mac.

Core Tunnel will read and use directives in your ~/.ssh/config file, but won’t sync it, so you are free to add computer-specific directives.

Feel free to comment if you need assistance to use IdentityFile directive.