HTTP Authentication: SSHKey Access Authentication - adamcin/net.adamcin.sshkey GitHub Wiki
Introduction
RFC 2617 Section 3: Digest Access Authentication
RFC 4252 Section 7: Public Key Authentication Method: "publickey"
The purpose of this specification is to describe an HTTP authentication scheme which augments Digest authentication by incorporating a commonly-used authentication protocol (Secure Shell Public Key Authentication) based on asymmetric key signing into the existing HTTP Access Authentication Framework. The most immediate benefit is to allow build, deployment, and configuration management systems to implement HTTP-based remote management APIs with administrative privileges without requiring knowledge of the related account password on the remote server. Instead, the deployment of an authorized_keys file or similar association of SSH Public Keys to the remote administrative account could be performed much less frequently than is commonly required when changing admin passwords.