This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org: --- Title : Storing arbitraty data in the Nitrokey HSM/SmartCard-HSM with Elementary Files (EF) Author : Remy van Elst Date : 17-07-2016 URL : https://raymii.org/s/articles/Storing_arbitraty_data_in_the_Nitrokey_HSM.html Format : Markdown/HTML --- ![][1] > Three Nitrokey's in their bags This is a guide which shows you how to write small elementary files to a nitrokey HSM. This can be usefull if you want to securely store data protected by a user pin. You can enter the wrong pin only three times, so offline brute forcing is out of the picture. ### Introduction The [Nitrokey HSM][2] is an open hardware and open software device. It is a USB version of the [SmartCard-HSM][3]. Both the [SmartCard-HSM][4] as the [Nitrokey HSM][5] have sources available and are fully supported by the [OpenSC][6] project. I have multiple [articles on][7] the [Nitrokey HSM/SmartCard-HSM][8]. I also have a lot of professional experience with large expensive HSM hardware. If you want to know more on the Nitrokey HSM then please read the [getting started articles][7].

Recently I removed all Google Ads from this site due to their invasive tracking, as well as Google Analytics. Please, if you found this content useful, consider a small donation using any of the options below:

I'm developing an open source monitoring app called Leaf Node Monitoring, for windows, linux & android. Go check it out!

Consider sponsoring me on Github. It means the world to me if you show your appreciation and you'll help pay the server costs.

You can also sponsor me by getting a Digital Ocean VPS. With this referral link you'll get $100 credit for 60 days.

![][10] > The SmartCard-HSM You could for example, store a file in the HSM and send it via the old-fashioned mail to someone, without sending the required pin. You send that via a different channel, preferably privately in person. The other person then can read the file of the HSM using the PIN. Since you only have 3 tries for the correct PIN, you know that an offline brute force attack is not likely to happen. If you encrypted a file an placed it on a regular USB drive, the post could be intercepted and stored for offline cracking by a government agency, without you knowing it. Because the pin entries are recorded, you know immidiately when the device has been tampered with. THe documentation states that for different PIN lengths there are different retry counters: * The SmartCard-HSM enforces a retry counter <= 3 for PIN length 6 * The SmartCard-HSM enforces a retry counter <= 5 for PIN length 7 * The SmartCard-HSM enforces a retry counter <= 10 for PIN length larger than 7 The Nitrokey HSM/SmartCard-HSM implements a smartcard over USB. They allow, next to certificates, private keys and public keys, also arbitrary data to be stored in so called [elementary files (EF)][11]. Do note that the filesize is limited and this is not meant to store your photo collection. At the end of the page the exact filesize limit is specified for the Nitrokey HSM/SmartCard-HSM. I will be using a test file, 16 bytes long, containing the line `Remy is awesome`. ### Writing files to the HSM Using the `pkcs11-tool` we can write data to the HSM: pkcs11-tool --module opensc-pkcs11.so --login --pin 648219 --write-object ~/tmp/hsm/smallfile --type data --id 5 --label 'data2' Output: Using slot 0 with a present token (0x0) Created Data Object: Data object 26411536 label: 'data2' application: 'data2' app_id: flags: modifiable Make sure to specify a `--label`, otherwise you cannot access it later on. (You can, the label will be empty (`''`) but just set a label.) Set the `--private` flag when writing to make sure you need to login first before getting access to the stored data: pkcs11-tool --module opensc-pkcs11.so --login --pin 648219 --write-object ~/tmp/hsm/smallfile --type data --id 5 --label 'data2' --private Otherwise the data will be accessible to everone that has access to the device. ### Viewing the data Both the `pkcs15-tool` and the `pkcs11-tool` can be used to view the data. The `pkcs11-tool` is the most convinient way: pkcs11-tool --module opensc-pkcs11.so --login --pin 648219 --read-object --type data --label 'data2' Output: Using slot 0 with a present token (0x0) Remy is awesome Using `pkcs15-tool` gives you the HEX output: pkcs15-tool --dump Data object 'data' applicationName: data Path: e82b0601040181c31f0201::cf00 Data (16 bytes): 52656D7920697320617765736F6D650A #### PKCS#15 HEX to ASCII `pkcs15-tool` can specifically read the data object but it dumps the data in HEX: pkcs15-tool --read-data-object data Output Using reader with a card: Nitrokey Nitrokey HSM (010000000000000000000000) 00 00 Data Object (16 bytes): < 52 65 6D 79 20 69 73 20 61 77 65 73 6F 6D 65 0A > If you've set the private flag you will need to enter the pin: $ pkcs15-tool --read-data-object data2 Using reader with a card: Nitrokey Nitrokey HSM (010000000000000000000000) 00 00 Please enter PIN [UserPIN]: Data Object (16 bytes): < 52 65 6D 79 20 69 73 20 61 77 65 73 6F 6D 65 0A > This data can be converted to ascii with the `xxd` command: $ echo '52 65 6D 79 20 69 73 20 61 77 65 73 6F 6D 65 0A' | xxd -r emy is awesome But there is data missing here. As the manual states, (`SmartCard-HSM, AGD User Manual for Version V2.3` section 5.2.2 `Read binary`): There is a known incompatibility with the READ BINARY variant defined in [ISO7816-4]:The SmartCard-HSM returns the raw data contained in the EF and does not prefix a tag 53 and the length. By prefixing the data returned with `00` we get the full string back: $ echo '00 52 65 6D 79 20 69 73 20 61 77 65 73 6F 6D 65 0A' | xxd -r Remy is awesome Here is a one liner that uses `awk` to print text between `<` and `>` with a `00` prefix, piped to `xxd`: pkcs15-tool --read-data-object data 2>&1 | awk -F'[<|>]' '/Data Object/ {print "00"$2}' | xxd -r The one liner doesn't work if you've got `--private` data, since you can't enter the PIN. ### Output to a file The data can be placed in a file as well by using the `--output-file` flag: pkcs11-tool --module opensc-pkcs11.so --login --pin 648219 --read-object --type data --label data --output-file test $ cat test Remy is awesome ### Deleting data You create space on the HSM or just to remove data you don't need anymore, use the `--delete-object` flag with the correct label: pkcs11-tool --module opensc-pkcs11.so --login --pin 648219 --delete-object --type data --application-label data Make sure you delete the correct data, otherwise you might just have removed your keypair. ### Maximum file size The files I wrote are all small files. Tests show that the maximum filesize for these elementary files (EF) is `5000 bytes`. Specifically tested by writing a file larger than 5000 bytes (`test`) to the HSM and reading it back to an output file (`test2`): $ du -b test* 5008 test 5000 test2 That means that in this case you must make sure to write less than 5 KB to the HSM. Plenty of space for some sensitive text files. [1]: https://raymii.org/s/inc/img/3hsm.jpg [2]: http://nitrokey.com [3]: http://www.smartcard-hsm.com/ [4]: http://www.smartcard-hsm.com/opensource.html [5]: https://github.com/nitrokey [6]: https://github.com/OpenSC/OpenSC/wiki/SmartCardHSM [7]: https://raymii.org/s/articles/Get_Started_With_The_Nitrokey_HSM.html [8]: https://raymii.org/s/articles/Nitrokey_HSM_in_Apache_with_mod_nss.html [9]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212 [10]: https://raymii.org/s/inc/img/sc-hsm.jpg [11]: http://www.cardwerk.com/smartcards/smartcard_standard_ISO7816-4_5_basic_organizations.aspx#chap5_1_3 --- License: All the text on this website is free as in freedom unless stated otherwise. This means you can use it in any way you want, you can copy it, change it the way you like and republish it, as long as you release the (modified) content under the same license to give others the same freedoms you've got and place my name and a link to this site with the article as source. This site uses Google Analytics for statistics and Google Adwords for advertisements. You are tracked and Google knows everything about you. Use an adblocker like ublock-origin if you don't want it. All the code on this website is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 license unless already licensed under a license which does not allows this form of licensing or if another license is stated on that page / in that software: This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . Just to be clear, the information on this website is for meant for educational purposes and you use it at your own risk. I do not take responsibility if you screw something up. Use common sense, do not 'rm -rf /' as root for example. If you have any questions then do not hesitate to contact me. See https://raymii.org/s/static/About.html for details.