Isokey

Isokey allows you to make and verify self-contained API keys without a database via HMAC/ECDSA signatures.

Features

• Important information such as userID, key expire time, and flags are authenticated and stored within the key.
• Use mutliple secrets
• Invalidate secrets and compromised keys

Table Of Contents

• Symmetric Keys
  • Make a key service
  • Sign a new key
  • Verify key
  • Using multiple secrets
  • Digest Structure
• Asymmetric Keys
  • Make a key pair
  • Make key digest
  • Verify key
  • Digest Structure
• Invalidating keys

Symmetric Keys

Make a key service

ks := NewSymKeyService([]byte("super_secure111"))

Sign a new key

key := &Key{
	UserID:  1,
	Expires: time.Now().AddDate(0, 1, 0),
}

digest, err := ks.Sign(key)
if err != nil {
	log.Fatalf("Failed to sign key: %v", err)
}
fmt.Printf("Digest is %v\n", digest)

Verify key

key, err = ks.Verify(digest)

if err != nil {
	log.Fatalf("Failed to verify digest: %v", err)
}

// Key authenticated
fmt.Printf("Key: %+v\n", key)

Using multiple secrets

The SecretVersion field is in included in the key object to enable implementors to easily use multiple secrets.

A secret can be decided based on any feature of a key.

ks.GetSecret = function(key *Key) (secret []byte){
	if key.SecretVersion == 1 {
		return []byte("sec1") 
	}
	return nil
}

Digest Structure

All binary values are big endian.

Digests are encoded with Bitcoin's base58 alphabet.

It may seem intuitive to put the signature at the end of the digest. It's located at the beginning as it makes eyeballing different keys easy.

Asymmetric Keys

Make a key pair

Make your private key openssl ecparam -genkey -name prime256v1 -outform DER -noout -out privatekey.der

Make your public key openssl ec -in privatekey.der -inform DER -outform DER -pubout -out publickey.der

Make key digest

privKey, _ = isokey.LoadPrivateKey("priv.key")

ks := NewAsymKeySigner(privKey)

key := &Key{
    User: 1,
    Expires: time.Now().Add(time.Hour)
}

digest, _ := ks.Sign(key)

fmt.Printf("Digest: %v", digest)

Verify key

pubKey, err := isokey.LoadPublicKey("pub.key")
if err != nil {
	log.Fatalf("Failed to load pubkey: %v", err)
}

kv := NewAsymKeyVerifier(pubKey)

key, err := kv.Verify(digest)
if err != nil {
	log.Fatalf("Failed to verify key: %v", err)
}

fmt.Printf("Key verified %+v\n", key)

Digest Structure

All binary values are big endian.

Digests are encoded with Bitcoin's base58 alphabet.

Invalidating keys

Expired keys always fail to validate.

You can add custom invalidation logic via the Invalidator field of verifiers.

verifier.Invalidator = function(key *isokey.Key) bool {
    // reject keys made before some time
    if key.UserID == 10 && key.Made.Before(time.Date(2015, time.November, 10, 23, 0, 0, 0, time.UTC)) {
        return true
    }
    return false
}