4.4.2.17. Yubikey

The Yubikey is initialized with privacyIDEA and works in Yubicos own AES mode. It outputs a 44 character OTP value, consisting of a 12 character prefix and a 32 character OTP. But in contrast to the Yubico Cloud mode, in this mode the secret key is contained within the token and your own privacyIDEA installation.

If you have the time and care about privacy, you should prefer the Yubikey AES mode over the Yubico Cloud mode.

There are three possible ways to enroll a Yubikey token.

Note

We recommend that you use the privacyidea command line client, to initialize the Yubikeys. You can use the mass enrollment, which eases the process of initializing a whole bunch of tokens.

Run the command like this:

privacyidea -U https://your.privacyidea.server -a admin token \
yubikey_mass_enroll --yubimode YUBICO

This command initializes the token and stores the AES secret and prefix in privacyidea, so the token is immediatly useful. You can choose the slot with --yubislot. For further help call privcyidea yubikey_mass_enroll with the --help option.

The second way to enroll a yubikey token is also using yubikey_mass_enroll, but with the option --filename to write to token configuration into the specified file. The resulting file can then be imported into privacyidea: Select Tokens -> Import Tokens, select “OATH CSV” and the file you just created.

4.4.2.17.1. Using the yubikey personalization GUI

Third and last you can use the privacyIDEA Web UI to enroll a Yubikey AES mode token, if you have initialized the yubikey with the external ykpersonalize tool.

../../_images/yk-personalization-gui.png

Use the yubikey-personalization-gui to initialize the yubikey

When using the yubikey personalization GUI you need to copy the value of “Secret Key (16 bytes Hex)”. This is the secret OTP key, which you need to copy and paste in the field “OTP Key” in the privacyIDEA Web UI. (Remove possible white spaces!)

../../_images/enroll_yubikey.png

Enroll a Yubikey AES mode token

In the field “Test Yubikey” push the Yubikey button. This will grab the yubikey’s public identifier and also determine the lenght of the otp value. The field OTP value is automatically filled.

4.4.2.17.1.1. Redirect api url to privacyideas /ttype/yubikey

Yubico servers use /wsapi/2.0/verify as the path in the validation URL. Some tools (e.g. Kolab 2fa) let the user/admin change the api host, but not the rest of the URL. Let’s redirect the api URL to privacyideas /ttype/yubikey - you’ll need to enable the following two lines in /etc/apache2/site-enabled/privacyidea.conf:

RewriteEngine on RewriteRule “^/wsapi/2.0/verify” “/ttype/yubikey” [PT]

If you use nginx there is a similar line provided as a comment to the nginx configuration as well.