yb — Secure Blob Storage in Your YubiKey

yb is a command-line tool for securely storing, retrieving, and managing binary blobs directly within a YubiKey using its PIV application. Blobs are stored under human-friendly names, optionally encrypted with hardware-backed hybrid cryptography.

GitHub: https://github.com/douzebis/yb

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Features

• Store binary blobs under human-friendly names (files or stdin)
• Encrypt data using hybrid ECDH + HKDF-SHA256 + AES-256-GCM, with the private key never leaving the YubiKey
• List, fetch, and remove blobs by exact name or glob pattern
• Multiple YubiKeys supported via --serial
• PIN-protected management key mode for convenience and security
• Shell completions for bash, zsh, and fish (dynamic blob-name completion)
• Inspect low-level store integrity with fsck
• No runtime dependencies beyond PC/SC — a single static binary

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Installation

cargo install

cargo install yb

Runtime requirement: a PC/SC daemon must be running (pcscd on Linux). No other external tools are needed.

Man pages: cargo install does not install man pages. To generate them locally, run:

cargo install --bin yb-gen-man yb
yb-gen-man /usr/local/share/man/man1

Or, if you have the source tree available:

cargo run --manifest-path rust/Cargo.toml --bin yb-gen-man -- /usr/local/share/man/man1

Nix (NixOS / nix-shell)

Build and install from the repo:

nix-build
result/bin/yb --help

Or enter a development shell with yb on PATH and shell completions activated automatically:

nix-shell

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/douzebis/yb
cd yb/rust
cargo build --release
# Binary is at target/release/yb

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Shell Completions

yb supports dynamic shell completions — blob names and serial numbers are completed live against the connected YubiKey.

bash

source <(YB_COMPLETE=bash yb | sed 's/yb//2;s/yb//2')

Add to ~/.bashrc for persistence.

zsh

YB_COMPLETE=zsh yb > ~/.zfunc/_yb
# Ensure ~/.zfunc is in your fpath, then:
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit

fish

YB_COMPLETE=fish yb > ~/.config/fish/completions/yb.fish

When installed via nix-build, completion scripts are installed automatically into the system completion directories. When using nix-shell, bash completions are activated for the current session automatically.

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Quick Start

1. Provision the YubiKey store

# Generate a new ECDH key pair and initialise the blob store
yb format --generate

This writes 20 PIV object sentinels to the YubiKey and generates a P-256 key in slot 0x82. Run once per YubiKey.

2. Store a blob

# Store a file (blob name defaults to the file's basename)
yb store secret.txt

# Store a file under a specific name
yb store --name my-key secret.txt

# Read from stdin
echo "s3cr3t" | yb store --name api-token

# Store unencrypted
yb store --unencrypted public-cert.pem

3. Fetch a blob

# Save to a file in the current directory (filename = blob name)
yb fetch my-key

# Write to stdout
yb fetch --stdout api-token

# Write to a specific file
yb fetch --output recovered.txt my-key

# Fetch multiple blobs matching a glob
yb fetch 'ssh-*'

4. List blobs

# Names only
yb list

# Long format (encrypted flag, chunk count, date, size, name)
yb list --long

# Filter by glob
yb list 'ssh-*'

# Sort by date, newest first
yb list --long --sort-time

5. Remove blobs

yb remove my-key

# Glob pattern
yb remove 'tmp-*'

# Ignore if not found
yb remove --ignore-missing old-token

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Command Reference

yb [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>

Options:
  -s, --serial <SERIAL>   YubiKey serial number (required with multiple keys)
  -r, --reader <READER>   PC/SC reader name (legacy; prefer --serial)
  -q, --quiet             Suppress informational output
      --pin-stdin         Read PIN from stdin (one line, for scripting)
      --allow-defaults    Allow insecure default credentials (not recommended)
      --debug             Enable debug output

Command	Alias	Description
format	—	Provision PIV objects; optionally generate ECDH key
store	—	Store a blob (file or stdin)
fetch	—	Retrieve blob(s) by name or glob
list	ls	List blobs with optional glob filter
remove	rm	Remove blob(s) by name or glob
fsck	—	Check store integrity and print summary
list-readers	—	List available PC/SC readers

Use yb <command> --help for full option details.

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PIN Handling

yb resolves the PIN in this order:

1. --pin-stdin — reads one line from stdin (for scripting and pipelines)
2. YB_PIN environment variable
3. Interactive TTY prompt — deferred until a PIN is actually needed

Commands that never need a PIN (list, fsck) never prompt.

Security note: YB_PIN and --pin-stdin are convenient for scripting but carry OS-level exposure risks. YB_PIN is visible to child processes and, on some systems, to other users via /proc. --pin-stdin is the safer non-interactive option — pipe the PIN on stdin rather than setting an environment variable when possible. The default interactive TTY prompt (rpassword) has no such exposure.

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Cryptographic Model

yb uses a hybrid encryption scheme:

1. A fresh ephemeral P-256 key pair is generated for each store operation.
2. ECDH between the ephemeral key and the YubiKey's resident P-256 key produces a shared secret — the YubiKey performs this operation on-card via GENERAL AUTHENTICATE; the private key never leaves the device.
3. The shared secret is fed into HKDF-SHA256 to derive an AES-256 key.
4. The blob is encrypted with AES-256-GCM (authenticated encryption).
5. The ephemeral public key, nonce, and ciphertext are stored in the YubiKey PIV objects.

Decryption (fetch) reverses steps 2–4, again using the YubiKey for ECDH.

Legacy blobs produced by the Python predecessor (AES-256-CBC) are still readable.

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Storage Model

yb stores blobs in custom PIV data objects (retired key certificate slots 0x5F_0000–0x5F_0013). Large blobs are split across multiple objects using a linked-chunk format. Default store configuration:

Parameter	Default	Notes
Object count	20	Tunable at format time (--object-count)
Max object size	3,063 bytes	Each PIV object is written at the size its content requires
Gross capacity	up to ~61 KB	Shared with other PIV data; YubiKey 5 NVM pool is 51,200 bytes
ECDH key slot	0x82	Tunable at format time (--key-slot)

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Multiple YubiKeys

# List connected readers
yb list-readers

# Use a specific YubiKey by serial number
yb --serial 12345678 list
yb --serial 12345678 store secret.txt

When multiple YubiKeys are connected and --serial is omitted, yb prints the available serials and exits.

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Security: Default Credential Detection

yb checks for factory-default credentials (PIN 123456, PUK 12345678, management key 010203...) and refuses to operate if any are detected. Change them with:

ykman piv access change-pin
ykman piv access change-puk
ykman piv access change-management-key --generate --protect

The last command enables PIN-protected management key mode: the management key is stored on the YubiKey itself, encrypted by your PIN. yb detects this automatically — no --key flag is needed for write operations.

To bypass the check (testing only): --allow-defaults or YB_SKIP_DEFAULT_CHECK=1.

Requires YubiKey firmware 5.3 or later for credential detection.

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Format Specification

The yblob binary format is fully documented in docs/YBLOB_FORMAT.md. It is designed to be implementation-independent: any tool that can read and write YubiKey PIV data objects can interoperate with a yblob store without using yb itself.

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File Format Recognition

The yblob binary format is registered in the file magic database (merged June 2025, bug #666). On any system with an up-to-date file installation, raw PIV object dumps are identified automatically:

$ file yubikey_object_dump.bin
yubikey_object_dump.bin: yblob object store image data

The magic number is 0xF2ED5F0B (little-endian u32 at offset 0), present in every PIV object written by yb.

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License

MIT License. See LICENSE for full text.