[gentoo-user] [OT] Storing ssh and gpg keys in USB flash drives

[José González Gómez]

Hi there,

I would like to store my ssh and gpg keys in my usb flash drive, but I'm not
sure what's the best way to do it:

If I use vfat so I can also read them from Windows I have two problems:
first you must mount your USB key with a 0077 umask, so ssh and gpg doesn't
complain about key permissions; latest KDE version seems to auto mount USB
flash drives using pmount with a 0022 umask and I haven't been able to
change this, so I either mount it manually or change the permissions after
being mounted. The second problem is related to gpg: it seems that gpg uses
links to lock the keyrings, and vfat doesn't support them, so I'm able to
read keys, but not to make any modfication on them.

If I use ext2 the permission problem goes away (kind of), but I have the
feeling that this isn't as portable as vfat, as the filesystem uses the user
id to control access to files, and pluging the drive in another system where
my user may have anoter uid leads me to chowning/chmoding in the better case
or not having access to my keys in the worst case.

Any ideas?

Best regards
Jose