EKEYREVOKED
Linux / POSIXERRORNotableSecurityHIGH confidence
Key Has Been Revoked
Production Risk
Revoked keys cannot be recovered; recreate and re-provision.
What this means
EKEYREVOKED (errno 128) is returned when a key has been explicitly revoked. A revoked key cannot be used or renewed.
Why it happens
- 1keyctl revoke was called on the key
- 2Key revoked due to security policy violation
How to reproduce
Accessing a revoked key.
trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
// After keyctl revoke <key-id>
key_serial_t key = request_key("user", "revoked-key", NULL, KEY_SPEC_SESSION_KEYRING);
// Returns -1, errno = EKEYREVOKEDexpected output
request_key: Key has been revoked (EKEYREVOKED)
Fix
Remove and recreate the key
WHEN When EKEYREVOKED is returned
Remove and recreate the key
# Remove the revoked key keyctl unlink <key-id> @u # Create a fresh replacement keyctl add user my-key "new-value" @u
Why this works
Revoked keys are permanently unusable; delete and recreate them.
Sources
Official documentation ↗
Linux Programmer Manual keyrings(7)
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