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Perl

SSH Tunnel Authenticate with a SecureString Password and Private Key

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Demonstrates the Chilkat SshTunnel.AuthenticateSecPwPk method, which authenticates using SecureString login and password objects together with a private key. The third argument is the SshKey private key.

Note: The private-key path is relative to the application's current working directory. Absolute paths may also be used. Supply the path to your own key file.

Background: This is the SecureString form of two-factor tunnel authentication: the password is held encrypted in memory and combined with a private key for servers that require both. It is the most protective option when a deployment mandates two-factor SSH and you also want to minimize plaintext credential exposure in a long-running process.

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Chilkat2 Perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# Demonstrates the SshTunnel.AuthenticateSecPwPk method, which authenticates using SecureString
# login and password objects together with a private key.  The 1st argument is the username, the
# 2nd is the password, and the 3rd is an SshKey private key.

my $tunnel = Chilkat2::SshTunnel->new;

# The tunnel forwards accepted local connections to this destination through the SSH server.
$tunnel->DestHostname('db.internal.example.com');
$tunnel->DestPort(5432);

# Connect to the SSH server.  This performs the TCP/proxy connection and SSH handshake, but
# does not authenticate yet.
my $sshPort = 22;
my $success = $tunnel->Connect('ssh.example.com', $sshPort);
if (!$success) {
    print $tunnel->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# Normally you would not hard-code the password in source.  You should instead obtain it
# from an interactive prompt, environment variable, or a secrets vault.
my $password = 'mySshPassword';

# Load the SSH private key.  LoadText reads the file's text, which is then imported.
my $privKey = Chilkat2::SshKey->new;
my $keyText = $privKey->LoadText('qa_data/id_rsa');
if (!$privKey->LastMethodSuccess) {
    print $privKey->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

$success = $privKey->FromOpenSshPrivateKey($keyText);
if (!$success) {
    print $privKey->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# Place the login and password into SecureString objects.
my $secureLogin = Chilkat2::SecureString->new;
$secureLogin->Append('mySshLogin');
my $securePassword = Chilkat2::SecureString->new;
$securePassword->Append($password);

$success = $tunnel->AuthenticateSecPwPk($secureLogin, $securePassword, $privKey);
if (!$success) {
    print $tunnel->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

print "Authenticated.\n";

# After authenticating, call BeginAccepting to start listening for local connections to forward.

my $waitForThreadExit = 1;
$success = $tunnel->CloseTunnel($waitForThreadExit);
if (!$success) {
    print $tunnel->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}