Loading private key from string or resource in Java JSch in Android app

Question

I'm writing an app which is supposed to access my private server via SSH using JSch. Since I have set up public key authentication I want this app to authenticate the same way. I will be the only one using this app so I want to store my key either directly inside the app (e.g. hard-coded) or separated somewhere inside the home directory of my phone. Which would be the best way to store it, maybe as a resource file inside the project? Since I'm pretty new to Android development I'm not sure about what's the best way for this.

What I've tried:

// [...]
String user = "my_user";
String ssh_pwd = "my_pwd";
String host = "my_host";
// stored as OpenSSH key - file not found error - where shoud I move this file?
String private_key = "./my_pk";

int port = 22;

// basic SSH connection stuff
JSch jsch = new JSch();
session = jsch.getSession(user, host, port);
jsch.addIdentity(private_key, ssh_pwd.getBytes());

Another way:

// [...]
// private key in OpenSSH format as a plain string
String private_key = "xyz123abc456def789ghi012..."; 
// public key in OpenSSH format as a plain string
String public_key = "a1b2c3d4e5..."; 
// [...]
jsch.addIdentity("id_rsa", private_key.getBytes(), public_key.getBytes(), ssh_pwd.getBytes());

The latter resulted in an "invalid privatekey" error. Besides that, I'm not sure which of both is the more secure way to work with.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

String private_key = "xyz123abc456def789ghi012..."; // private key in OpenSSH format as a plain string
String public_key = "a1b2c3d4e5..."; // public key in OpenSSH format as a plain string

The JSch.addIdentity (and ultimately KeyPair.load) takes a buffer that contains a contents of key pair files as generated by ssh-keygen (with -m pem in recent versions of OpenSSH).

The formats are like this:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIEpAIBAAKCAQEAvc04a8wViYV5Kb4jX+MxEqN1vi9q9C7mPhf6DV+mb1ADNAiR
YeLqPMLCYUF2ViobcGfarb51gz7iB2TgkDmhQNK9XDCOUaGYN/FeZcN0JpzkjEjZ
ApbRfshj1h9qKQUW+38XKnltMtf4dxiuxkXph8P6IMVveTDs3sSbBPq560bdJ1AD
...
PEyVxlat2I4ShuLQiO1QIuS8ABu5yDM2EouB6vlxtGEBpIJItp7cyA==
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQC9zThrzBWJhXkpviNf4zESo3W+L2r0LuY+F/oNX6ZvUAM0CJFh4uo8wsJhQXZWKhtwZ9qtvnWDPuIHZOCQOaFA0r1cMI5RoZg38V5lw3QmnOSMSNkCltF+yGPWH2opBRb7fxcqeW0y1/h3GK7GRemHw/ogxW95MOzexJsE+rnrRt0nUAOu4hHjL6G/nlvdJ1jjZ06NwhYkbAxRoJkHUJTtMT2IL5ZmdAf37KHSPqZS32pLxQDmPutZxpIwlhz4aR78ZGp4+57mR069Y4at09GF0UmgtIiLjlKUexMf5sueVQ8LKhME6vOupMzTbiFEB3UJNq8d9Yx5i+c/IRHUIcI1 marti@MartinuvOmen

This is not the format you have in private_key and public_key.

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See also JSch to add private key from a string.