Using a YubiKey on Linux

I recently got a YubiKey 4 to use for multi-factor authentication and have gradually been setting up my various accounts (GitHub, Dropbox, etc.).

At one of our client sites, I use a CentOS desktop. After finally getting their IT department to approve the YubiKey, I was excited to actually get to use it on that machine. But when I plugged it in to authenticate to GitHub, much to my disappointment, I got a message that simply said “Something when went” after touching the YubiKey.

After some searching, I discovered there is some additional setup and configuration that needs to be done to get it to work on Linux. The steps outlined in the Yubico support article Using Your U2F YubiKey with Linux solved my issue. After updating udev rules on my system, the YubiKey worked flawlessly!