Files
DodoSSH/README.md
T
jaap-jan 1d262b7ccc Run M1's end-to-end slice, and fix the two bugs it found
The whole vertical slice now runs against a real Keycloak, a real API, a
real PostgreSQL and a real sshd: sign in through the browser flow, enroll
with the identity-provider key binding, unlock, create a host, sync it,
read it back on a second machine, unlock again with no network, accept an
unseen host key, and open an interactive shell. Opt-in, because it needs
the development stack; skipped with a message naming the commands.

It found two bugs on its first run, and both are the same class: two
sides of a stub agreeing with each other about something the
specification never said.

**The API never applied DodoSshJsonContext to its HTTP JSON options.**
Minimal APIs therefore used the framework's web defaults, which write an
enum as a number. Every request DTO carrying one failed to bind against a
client writing the specified string form — which is the entire sync
surface, unreachable from the real client, with a 400 naming only the
parameter. The documented guarantee that request bodies reject unmapped
members was likewise not in effect anywhere.

Nothing caught it because the API tests posted with PostAsJsonAsync's
defaults, so they and the server had independently settled on integers.
Those tests now serialise through the contract, which is the deeper fix:
removing the new configuration fails 13 of them. Copying settings into
options a host owns is itself the hazard the context warns about, so
ApplyTo lives beside the settings it mirrors and ApplyToTests pins the
transformation, including that inserting the resolver leaves the caller's
own in place.

**The realm registered a loopback redirect URI Keycloak rejects.**
`http://127.0.0.1:*/callback` looks more explicit than the RFC 8252 form
and is broken: Keycloak's wildcards are trailing-only, so the `*` parses
as a literal port and every authorization request came back "Invalid
parameter: redirect_uri". Providers ignore the port for loopback hosts,
which is the whole mechanism, so the correct registration is
`http://127.0.0.1/callback` — path pinned, port free. The value the
server advertises through the discovery document said the same wrong
thing and now says the right one.

Two smaller things, both documented in docs/platform-flags.md:

- --import-realm skips a realm that already exists, so editing the realm
  file and restarting Keycloak changes nothing and serves stale
  configuration. The container has to be recreated. The compose comment
  claimed the opposite.
- Keycloak marks its session cookies Secure even over plain HTTP, because
  SameSite=None requires it. A spec-conformant client drops them and the
  login POST answers 400 with no message; browsers complete the flow only
  because they exempt loopback. Harmless for the product, fatal for
  automation, so ScriptedBrowser carries the cookies by hand and says why.

Also: the server enforces a 64 MiB floor on the passphrase KDF, so this
suite cannot use the 8 MiB profile the other client suites take for
speed. Those only get away with it because their in-memory servers have
no policy — worth knowing rather than rediscovering.

638 tests. The solution-wide run stays green with the stack down: exit
code 8 means "no tests ran", which the platform reports as failure, so
the opt-in project ignores exactly that code.
2026-07-29 11:37:49 +02:00

7.3 KiB

DodoSSH

A self-hosted, team-oriented SSH client with an end-to-end encrypted vault.

Manage hosts, credentials and keys in a desktop app; sync them across your devices and share them with teammates through a server you run yourself. The server stores ciphertext and never holds a key — the operator cannot read the credentials it stores.

Status: early development. See the milestone plan for what exists today.

Why

Teams either scatter SSH credentials across individual ~/.ssh directories with no sharing story, or pay per-seat for a hosted product that holds their infrastructure credentials. DodoSSH keeps the convenience of a synced, shareable vault while remaining self-hostable and zero-knowledge.

Architecture

Component Choice
Backend ASP.NET Core on .NET 10, PostgreSQL + EF Core
Client Avalonia (C#) for Windows/Linux/macOS; terminal pane is a WebView running xterm.js
Auth OIDC, provider-agnostic (Entra ID, Keycloak, Auth0, Authentik)
Vault End-to-end encrypted; X25519 + Ed25519 + XChaCha20-Poly1305, Argon2id unlock
Connections Client-direct SSH by default, with an optional raw-TCP server relay

Two consequences worth knowing before you read further:

  • Revocation is not retroactive. A removed member keeps what they already downloaded. The real remediation is rotating the SSH credential, so offboarding is built around a rotation checklist rather than a button that implies more than it delivers.
  • No session recording in relay mode. The relay forwards SSH ciphertext, so it cannot see commands. That is the cost of the relay not being able to read your traffic.

The reasoning behind each major decision is recorded in docs/adr/, starting with the E2EE trust model.

Repository layout

src/
  DodoSSH.Contracts        DTOs shared with the client — the real API contract
  DodoSSH.Crypto           DSH1 envelope, AAD derivation, the key hierarchy
  DodoSSH.Domain           entities and invariants, no EF
  DodoSSH.Infrastructure   DbContext, configurations, migrations
  DodoSSH.Api              the server
  DodoSSH.Client.Auth      OIDC code+PKCE on a loopback redirect, and the key binding
  DodoSSH.Client.Api       the typed server client, and client-side enrollment
  DodoSSH.Client.Domain    the decrypted item model and the three-way merge — no I/O at all
  DodoSSH.Client.Storage   the local cache: ciphertext mirror, outbox, offline unlock material
  DodoSSH.Client.Sync      the pull/apply/push loop and the conflict policy
  DodoSSH.Client.Session   where a profile lives, unlocking it, and getting one in the first place
  DodoSSH.Client.Ssh       connections, PTY shells, host key trust
  DodoSSH.Client.Terminal  the loopback data plane and credit-based flow control
  DodoSSH.Client.App       Avalonia; the only project that knows about a UI toolkit
tests/                     one test project per source project
docs/adr/                  architecture decision records

Everything under src/DodoSSH.Client.* except App is deliberately free of Avalonia. That is the seam that lets the SSH layer, the terminal's flow control and the OIDC flow be tested without a UI toolkit or a browser engine — which is most of why they are testable at all.

Building

Requires the .NET SDK pinned in global.json (10.0.x).

dotnet build DodoSSH.slnx
dotnet test DodoSSH.slnx

Run the API locally:

dotnet run --project src/DodoSSH.Api

It listens on http://localhost:5233, serving /healthz/live, /healthz/ready and — in Development — /openapi/v1.json.

End-to-end verification

One suite runs against a real server rather than a stub, and it is opt-in because it needs the stack:

docker compose -f deploy/docker-compose.dev.yml up -d
dotnet ef database update --project src/DodoSSH.Infrastructure
dotnet run --project src/DodoSSH.Api
DODOSSH_E2E=1 dotnet test tests/DodoSSH.SystemTests

It signs in through a real Keycloak, enrolls, unlocks, creates a host, syncs it, reads it back on a second simulated machine, unlocks again with no network, and opens a shell on a real sshd. Skipped otherwise, with a message naming the commands above.

It is worth its weight: on its first run it found a loopback redirect URI the realm registered in a form Keycloak rejects, and a JSON configuration gap that made the whole sync surface unreachable from the real client while every other test passed. Both are the same class of bug — two sides of a stub agreeing with each other about something the specification never said.

Development and testing are currently Windows-only. Anything known or suspected to differ on Linux and macOS is tracked in docs/platform-flags.md, along with the deployment gotchas that have already cost time once. Read it before assuming something works off-Windows.

Conventions the build enforces

  • Warnings are errors. dotnet format --verify-no-changes gates CI.
  • Package versions are centralised in Directory.Packages.props; packages.lock.json is committed and CI restores in locked mode.
  • BannedSymbols.txt bans DateTime.UtcNow (use TimeProvider), Guid.NewGuid (use CreateVersion7), sync-over-async, MD5/SHA1 and PBKDF2.
  • Public members of DodoSSH.Contracts must be declared in PublicAPI.Unshipped.txt, so a contract change is a build error rather than a client-side surprise.

Milestones

  • M0 — foundation. Repo structure, build conventions, CI, ADRs. Done.

  • M1 — vertical slice. OIDC login → enroll → create a host → open a shell. Server done: the DSH1 crypto core, the data model, sync push/pull for hosts, /me, and enrollment with the identity-provider key binding. Client done: the key hierarchy, the OIDC flow with the key binding, SSH connections with host key trust, the terminal data plane, the encrypted local cache with the sync client — offline unlock, an outbox and a field-level three-way merge, conflict matrix green — and an Avalonia shell that is vault-backed: server URL → browser sign-in → enroll → unlock → host list → terminal. The shell's whole path is covered by tests against an in-memory server, so the states that matter most (the recovery code that cannot be skipped, the unlock that needs no network) are checked rather than remembered. Verified end to end: tests/DodoSSH.SystemTests drives the whole slice against a real Keycloak, a real API, a real PostgreSQL and a real sshd — sign-in, the identity-provider key binding, enrollment, offline unlock, a host through the vault to a second machine, and an interactive shell. See End-to-end verification.

    Known gaps in the client, stated rather than implied by the interface: credentials are not a synced entity type yet, so a connection still asks for a password; known host keys live in memory for one session instead of in the vault; and no device key is registered, so the passphrase is needed on every launch until the OS keystore is wired.

  • M2 — full personal vault, robust sync, relay.

  • M3 — teams, sharing, ACLs.

  • M4 — hardening and ops, packaging, self-hosting guide.

  • M5 — multi-provider OIDC, key rotation, per-item content keys.

Licence

MIT.