ssh

Contents

directory structure

openssh creates a directory $HOME/.ssh in your home-directory typically with the following files

   1 % ls -d1 .ssh/*  
   2 .ssh/authorized_keys
   3 .ssh/config
   4 .ssh/id_rsa
   5 .ssh/id_rsa.pub
   6 .ssh/known_hosts

authorized_keys contains public keys for public key authentication
config user's configuration file for OpenSSH client
id_rsa PRIVATE KEY: Contains the DSA, ECDSA, authenticator-hosted ECDSA, Ed25519, authenticator-hosted Ed25519 or RSA authentication identity of the user.
id_rsa.pub PUBLIC KEY: Contains the DSA, ECDSA, authenticator-hosted ECDSA, Ed25519, authenticator-hosted Ed25519 or RSA public key for authentication.
known_hosts Contains host public keys for all known hosts.

shell aliases

   1 alias insecscp='command scp -o "StrictHostKeyChecking=no" -o "UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null"'
   2 alias insecssh='command ssh -o "StrictHostKeyChecking=no" -o "UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null"'
   3 alias s='command ssh'

Check SSH-HostKey

See man page

   1 man -P "less -p '^VERIFYING HOST KEYS'" ssh

   1 ssh-keygen -l -v -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.pub

Check with little ASCII-"Art"

   1 ssh -o "VisualHostKey yes" "$REMOTE_HOST"

Check SSHFP record in DNS (if published)

   1 ssh -o "VerifyHostKeyDNS ask"

Persist config in
~/.ssh/config"

   1 VerifyHostKeyDNS        ask
   2 VisualHostKey           yes

HostKey changed

Routing (still in a VPN)
DNS resolution
Check SSHFP

Log in as root

Logging in as root over ssh by password is disabled by the default configuration. Because it is

not accountable and therefore a security issue.
target to brute-force attacks.
using a shared secret (password of root).
probably unnecessary.

Instead it's recommended at this point to log in to your personal account and elevate privileges using sudo.

pubkey auth

The private key

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY!

Safety Rules

Make sure storage of your private key meets all of the following criteria.

The file

owner is set to yourself
group is set to your own
only readable by yourself (only 0600 )
and is always encrypted
is stored on a non-public accessible storage
has a backup which is stored secure to
is never in the hands of other people (no matter how trustworthy they are).

Be careful, the private key simply misses the .pub extension.

PubKey Auth on Linux and Unix

Generate a key pair for pubkey auth.

RSA or
- length >= 2048, recommendation: length = 4096bit
ECDSA
- you may specify the curve with -b (256, 384 or 521).

Use ssh-keygen to generate a key-pair

   1 # CREATE .ssh/id_rsa*
   2 ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
   3 # CREATE .ssh/id_ecdsa*
   4 ssh-keygen -t ecdsa -b 521

Now you can prepare pubkey auth. Therefore the pubkey needs to be appended to the list of authorized keys on the target system. Be careful not to leak you private key!
Example on localhost

   1 cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

You can test it by logging in to localhost via ssh.

   1 ssh localhost

If you are using the key a lot, it is more convenient to unlock/decrypt your private key and copy it to RAM using a ssh-agent. Just type ssh-add and you will be asked to provide a pass-phrase to decrypt the key. You may delete all keys from the ssh-agent with ssh-add -D.

You also may copy your pubkey to systems, that reachable via ssh and you are able to login.

   1 ssh-copy-id $REMOTE_USER@$REMOTE-SYSTEM

You now may login without password prompt by the remote system.

   1 ssh $REMOTE_USER@$REMOTE-SYSTEM

PubKey Auth on Win10

There is a nice article on docs.microsoft.com OpenSSH key management

Install the powershell module for openssh and start the ssh-service (probably for this session only) from a elevated shell.

   1 # Install the OpenSSHUtils module to the server. This will be valuable when deploying user keys.
   2 Install-Module -Force OpenSSHUtils -Scope AllUsers
   3 
   4 # Start the ssh-agent service to preserve the server keys
   5 Start-Service ssh-agent
   6 
   7 # Now start the sshd service
   8 # Start-Service sshd
   9

Create a key-pair (make sure the private key is encrypted)

   1 cd ~\.ssh\
   2 ssh-keygen

Check agent status and import keys

   1 # This should return a status of Running
   2 Get-Service ssh-agent
   3 
   4 # Now load your key files into ssh-agent
   5 ssh-add

Now log in to your favorite host… :-D

Bugs in OpenSSH for Win32

If you are using ssh with a JumpHost you might run in to a bug with older ssh versions (<8.1). https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/issues/1172

   1 posix_spawn: No such file or directory”

Please update to the latest Version of Windows first! But this is not fixed in Windows 10 v2004…

Here are some links to a installation advisory on

You'll probably need the latest ssh-version OpenSSH-Win64.zip from https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/releases

Please use the script install-sshd.ps1 with administrative permissions. powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install-sshd.ps1

Check it with ssh -V

You may be forced to list the new openssh-directory in the PATH variable in front of %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\OpenSSH\.

ssh escape characters

A little, often unknown, but very useful feature of openssh!

   1 ESCAPE CHARACTERS
   2      When a pseudo-terminal has been requested, ssh supports a number of func‐
   3      tions through the use of an escape character.
   4 
   5      A single tilde character can be sent as ~~ or by following the tilde by a
   6      character other than those described below.  The escape character must
   7      always follow a newline to be interpreted as special.  The escape charac‐
   8      ter can be changed in configuration files using the EscapeChar configura‐
   9      tion directive or on the command line by the -e option.
  10 
  11      The supported escapes (assuming the default ‘~’) are:
  12 
  13      ~.      Disconnect.
  14 
  15      ~^Z     Background ssh.
  16 
  17      ~#      List forwarded connections.
  18 
  19      ~&      Background ssh at logout when waiting for forwarded connection /
  20              X11 sessions to terminate.
  21 
  22      ~?      Display a list of escape characters.
  23 
  24      ~B      Send a BREAK to the remote system (only useful if the peer sup‐
  25              ports it).
  26 
  27      ~C      Open command line.  Currently this allows the addition of port
  28              forwardings using the -L, -R and -D options (see above).  It also
  29              allows the cancellation of existing port-forwardings with
  30              -KL[bind_address:]port for local, -KR[bind_address:]port for re‐
  31              mote and -KD[bind_address:]port for dynamic port-forwardings.
  32              !command allows the user to execute a local command if the
  33              PermitLocalCommand option is enabled in ssh_config(5).  Basic
  34              help is available, using the -h option.
  35 
  36      ~R      Request rekeying of the connection (only useful if the peer sup‐
  37              ports it).
  38 
  39      ~V      Decrease the verbosity (LogLevel) when errors are being written
  40              to stderr.
  41 
  42      ~v      Increase the verbosity (LogLevel) when errors are being written
  43              to stderr.

keyboard-interactive authentication

sshpass

Please try pubkey-authentication first, before trying keyboard-interactive auth with sshpass.
Never use option -ppassword, because everybody can read it the password ps or top (using a race condition before obfuscation by sshpass).

Install ssh-pass

   1 aptitude install sshpass

via file descriptor

Source: Serverfault: How to automate ssh login with password

Example

   1 #!/bin/bash
   2 # Generate a name for a pipe (-u|--dry-run)
   3 PIPE="$(mktemp -u)"
   4 # Create FIFO pipe
   5 mkfifo -m 600 "$PIPE"
   6 # Opened pipe for both reading and writing on file descriptor 3
   7 exec 3<>"$PIPE"
   8 # Delete the directory entry
   9 rm "$PIPE"
  10 UIDNAME="user"
  11 HOST="host"
  12 FILE="path/to/file"
  13 # Write your password to the pipe.
  14 # You may even use gpg at this point.
  15 echo 'my_secret_password' >&3
  16 # Read password with sshpass from file descriptor 3 and
  17 # connect via sftp
  18 sshpass -d3 sftp "$UIDNAME"@"$HOST":"$FILE"
  19 # Close the pipe when done
  20 exec 3>&-

environment variable

   1 #!/bin/bash
   2 # MAKE VARIABLE SSHPASS AVAILABLE
   3 # IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF ANY SUBSEQUENT COMMAND
   4 export SSHPASS="my_secret_password"
   5 # SSHPASS ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE MAY BE READ
   6 # FROM "/proc/$PID/environ"
   7 # BY THE INVOKING USER AND ROOT
   8 sshpass -e sftp user@host:path/to/file
   9 unset SSHPASS

password file

Make sure Unix-permissions are correct (replace "$OWNER")!

   1 install -m 600 -o "$OWNER" path/to/password.file
   2 ### WRITE PASSWORD IN "password.file"
   3

   1 #!/bin/bash
   2 export PWFILE="path/to/password.file"
   3 sshpass -f"PWFILE" sftp user@host:path/to/file
   4 unset PWFILE

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