xref: /openbmc/qemu/docs/system/devices/usb-u2f.rst (revision bf616ce4)
1Universal Second Factor (U2F) USB Key Device
2============================================
3
4U2F is an open authentication standard that enables relying parties
5exposed to the internet to offer a strong second factor option for end
6user authentication.
7
8The second factor is provided by a device implementing the U2F
9protocol. In case of a USB U2F security key, it is a USB HID device
10that implements the U2F protocol.
11
12QEMU supports both pass-through of a host U2F key device to a VM,
13and software emulation of a U2F key.
14
15``u2f-passthru``
16----------------
17
18The ``u2f-passthru`` device allows you to connect a real hardware
19U2F key on your host to a guest VM. All requests made from the guest
20are passed through to the physical security key connected to the
21host machine and vice versa.
22
23In addition, the dedicated pass-through allows you to share a single
24U2F security key with several guest VMs, which is not possible with a
25simple host device assignment pass-through.
26
27You can specify the host U2F key to use with the ``hidraw``
28option, which takes the host path to a Linux ``/dev/hidrawN`` device:
29
30.. parsed-literal::
31   |qemu_system| -usb -device u2f-passthru,hidraw=/dev/hidraw0
32
33If you don't specify the device, the ``u2f-passthru`` device will
34autoscan to take the first U2F device it finds on the host (this
35requires a working libudev):
36
37.. parsed-literal::
38   |qemu_system| -usb -device u2f-passthru
39
40``u2f-emulated``
41----------------
42
43``u2f-emulated`` is a completely software emulated U2F device.
44It uses `libu2f-emu <https://github.com/MattGorko/libu2f-emu>`__
45for the U2F key emulation. libu2f-emu
46provides a complete implementation of the U2F protocol device part for
47all specified transports given by the FIDO Alliance.
48
49To work, an emulated U2F device must have four elements:
50
51 * ec x509 certificate
52 * ec private key
53 * counter (four bytes value)
54 * 48 bytes of entropy (random bits)
55
56To use this type of device, these have to be configured, and these
57four elements must be passed one way or another.
58
59Assuming that you have a working libu2f-emu installed on the host,
60there are three possible ways to configure the ``u2f-emulated`` device:
61
62 * ephemeral
63 * setup directory
64 * manual
65
66Ephemeral is the simplest way to configure; it lets the device generate
67all the elements it needs for a single use of the lifetime of the device.
68It is the default if you do not pass any other options to the device.
69
70.. parsed-literal::
71   |qemu_system| -usb -device u2f-emulated
72
73You can pass the device the path of a setup directory on the host
74using the ``dir`` option; the directory must contain these four files:
75
76 * ``certificate.pem``: ec x509 certificate
77 * ``private-key.pem``: ec private key
78 * ``counter``: counter value
79 * ``entropy``: 48 bytes of entropy
80
81.. parsed-literal::
82   |qemu_system| -usb -device u2f-emulated,dir=$dir
83
84You can also manually pass the device the paths to each of these files,
85if you don't want them all to be in the same directory, using the options
86
87 * ``cert``
88 * ``priv``
89 * ``counter``
90 * ``entropy``
91
92.. parsed-literal::
93   |qemu_system| -usb -device u2f-emulated,cert=$DIR1/$FILE1,priv=$DIR2/$FILE2,counter=$DIR3/$FILE3,entropy=$DIR4/$FILE4
94