ESP32 Forum

Hi Everyone - I'm trying to determine if it's safe to store SSH keys on my esp32-based devices for authentication purposes. I've done a bunch of digging but I can't seem to find a decisive answer. I've seen some things that imply that it's safe to store keys provided they are properly separated and ignored by SVN and all that.

My question is: how safe is it to store ssh keys on my ESP32 devices? Can the devices "leak" my keys if someone runs a debugger on my chip? Is there a better way to authenticate an esp device without maintaining some database of MACs or similar?

Sorry for my ignorance - I'm a web guy and a little bit new to working on hardware like the ESP. Any help greatly appreciated!!

It is safe even with physical access if you use flash encryption and secure boot but careful not to lock yourself out of your own device during development.

That's very helpful - thank you very much!