Key rotation

How it works

Both sides must install the new key before the old dies, or you overlap them. A rotation that deletes first stops the night job. Calendars and owners make this a procedure, not a hero move.

A partner key expires on the 30th. The new public key is installed on the 20th. Both work for ten days. On the 30th the old key is removed. A team that waited until the 30th misses a file.

How it differs

Key rotation is not password reset theater if scripts still have the old password in a repo.

A host-key rotation and a user-key rotation are different events.

Do both on purpose.

On the ticket

• The practical close is a log line: time, actor, byte count, result.
• Without that line the transfer is a story.
• With it, the next person can see whether this door did what the ticket claimed.
• If the path is shared, say so in the partner profile so a later change does not silently pick a different limit, key, or region.
• On a real ticket, write down the door, the byte count, and the clock.
• For key rotation, that means naming the host or bucket, the expected size, and the time the other side must have a complete file.
• A progress bar is not that record.
• A 200 response that arrives before the complete call is not that record.
• If a retry is allowed, say how many and whether it resumes.
• If a person must approve the send, name the person.
• Partners who receive key rotation files should match on hash or size before they import.
• A same-length corrupt file passes a size check and fails a hash.
• Keep the published hash off the only channel an attacker can edit, or treat it as a corruption check rather than a substitution check.
• When the path changes, new key, new region, new cap, update the profile the same day so the next run does not use a stale limit.