ATTENTION In order to allow using one time passwords (OTPs) and any other text input, Keyboard-interactive is enabled in OpenSSH. This MAY allow for password authentication to work. It is therefore very important to check your PAM configuration so that PAM disallow password authentication for OpenSSH. OpenSSH 6.3+ (default) File: /etc/ssh/sshd. Ssh-agent.exe stores private keys used for public key authentication; ssh-add.exe adds private keys to the list allowed by the server; ssh-keyscan.exe aids in collecting the public SSH host keys from a number of hosts; sftp.exe is the service that provides the Secure File Transfer Protocol, and runs over SSH; scp.exe is a file copy utility that.

1. Openssh Password Authentication
2. Openssh Passwordless Login

OpenSSH was not vulnerable to the RC4 cipher password cracking, replay, or modification attacks. At the time that OpenSSH was started, it was already known that SSH 1 used the RC4 stream cipher completely incorrectly, and thus RC4 support was removed. Said, the password you entered into ssh-keygen is the password for your private key, not for ssh. Also, you're supposed to generate a key on the client device, and then copy that client's public key into the authorizedkeys file. It sounds like you copied the server's public key into the server's authorizedkeys list. Unless you set ssh up to require a public/private key for login, you will not require the public key. Setup an SSH Login Without a Password Using a Private Key; OpenSSH is a set of applications providing encrypted communication sessions over a computer network using the SSH protocol. Procedure: How to Install the OpenSSH Server on Windows Install the typical version of the server, which can be downloaded from the following website.

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Most authentication in Windows environments is done with a username-password pair.This works well for systems that share a common domain.When working across domains, such as between on-premise and cloud-hosted systems, it becomes vulnerable to brute force intrusions.

Openssh Password Authentication

By comparison, Linux environments commonly use public-key/private-key pairs to drive authentication which doesn't require the use of guessable passwords.OpenSSH includes tools to help support this, specifically:

• ssh-keygen for generating secure keys
• ssh-agent and ssh-add for securely storing private keys
• scp and sftp to securely copy public key files during initial use of a server

This document provides an overview of how to use these tools on Windows to begin using key authentication with SSH.If you are unfamiliar with SSH key management, we strongly recommend you review NIST document IR 7966 titled 'Security of Interactive and Automated Access Management Using Secure Shell (SSH).'

About key pairs

Key pairs refer to the public and private key files that are used by certain authentication protocols.

SSH public-key authentication uses asymmetric cryptographic algorithms to generate two key files – one 'private' and the other 'public'. The private key files are the equivalent of a password, and should stay protected under all circumstances. If someone acquires your private key, they can log in as you to any SSH server you have access to. The public key is what is placed on the SSH server, and may be shared without compromising the private key.

When using key authentication with an SSH server, the SSH server and client compare the public keys for username provided against the private key. If the server-side public key cannot be validated against the client-side private key, authentication fails.

Multi-factor authentication may be implemented with key pairs by requiring that a passphrase be supplied when the key pair is generated (see key generation below).During authentication the user is prompted for the passphrase, which is used along with the presence of the private key on the SSH client to authenticate the user.

Host key generation

Public keys have specific ACL requirements that, on Windows, equate to only allowing access to administrators and System.To make this easier,

• The OpenSSHUtils PowerShell module has been created to set the key ACLs properly, and should be installed on the server
• On first use of sshd, the key pair for the host will be automatically generated. If ssh-agent is running, the keys will be automatically added to the local store.

To make key authentication easy with an SSH server, run the following commands from an elevated PowerShell prompt:

Since there is no user associated with the sshd service, the host keys are stored under ProgramDatassh.

User key generation

To use key-based authentication, you first need to generate some public/private key pairs for your client.From PowerShell or cmd, use ssh-keygen to generate some key files.

This should display something like the following (where 'username' is replaced by your user name)

You can hit Enter to accept the default, or specify a path where you'd like your keys to be generated.At this point, you'll be prompted to use a passphrase to encrypt your private key files.The passphrase works with the key file to provide 2-factor authentication.For this example, we are leaving the passphrase empty.

Now you have a public/private ED25519 key pair(the .pub files are public keys and the rest are private keys):

Remember that private key files are the equivalent of a password should be protected the same way you protect your password.To help with that, use ssh-agent to securely store the private keys within a Windows security context, associated with your Windows login.To do that, start the ssh-agent service as Administrator and use ssh-add to store the private key.

After completing these steps, whenever a private key is needed for authentication from this client, ssh-agent will automatically retrieve the local private key and pass it to your SSH client.

Note

It is strongly recommended that you back up your private key to a secure location,then delete it from the local system, after adding it to ssh-agent.The private key cannot be retrieved from the agent.If you lose access to the private key, you would have to create a new key pairand update the public key on all systems you interact with.

Deploying the public key

To use the user key that was created above, the public key needs to be placed on the server into a text file called authorized_keys under usersusername.ssh.The OpenSSH tools include scp, which is a secure file-transfer utility, to help with this.

To move the contents of your public key (~.sshid_ed25519.pub) into a text file called authorized_keys in ~.ssh on your server/host.

This example uses the Repair-AuthorizedKeyPermissions function in the OpenSSHUtils module which was previously installed on the host in the instructions above.

These steps complete the configuration required to use key-based authentication with SSH on Windows.After this, the user can connect to the sshd host from any client that has the private key.

The goal of this document is to help operational teams with the configuration of OpenSSH server and client.All Mozilla sites and deployment should follow the recommendations below.The Security Assurance and Security Operations teams maintain this document as a reference guide.

Most default OpenSSH settings that are security-related already provide good security, thus changing them is at your own risk and is not documented here. For example, these guidelines assume only SSH protocol 2 is configured in the server, and SSH protocol 1 is disabled. This also assumes that you are keeping OpenSSH up-to-date with security patches.See man sshd_config, man ssh_config for more information on specific settings if you nevertheless need to change them. |

Configuration

Different versions of OpenSSH support different options which are not always compatible. This guide shows settings for the most commonly deployed OpenSSH versions at Mozilla - however, using the latest version of OpenSSH is recommended.

Modern (OpenSSH 6.7+)

File: /etc/ssh/sshd_config

File: /etc/ssh/moduli

All Diffie-Hellman moduli in use should be at least 3072-bit-long (they are used for diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256) as per our Key management Guidelines recommendations. See also man moduli.

To deactivate short moduli in two commands: awk '$5 >= 3071' /etc/ssh/moduli > /etc/ssh/moduli.tmp && mv /etc/ssh/moduli.tmp /etc/ssh/moduli

Intermediate (OpenSSH 5.3)

This is mainly for use by RHEL6, CentOS6, etc. which run older versions of OpenSSH.

File: /etc/ssh/sshd_config

File: /etc/ssh/moduli

All Diffie-Hellman moduli in use should be at least 2048-bit-long. From the structure of moduli files, this means the fifth field of all lines in this file should be greater than or equal to 2047.

To deactivate weak moduli in two commands: awk '$5 >= 2047' /etc/ssh/moduli > /etc/ssh/moduli.tmp; mv /etc/ssh/moduli.tmp /etc/ssh/moduli

Multi-Factor Authentication (OpenSSH 6.3+)

Recent versions of OpenSSH support MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication). Using MFA is recommended where possible.

It requires additional setup, such as using the OATH Toolkit or DuoSecurity.

ATTENTION In order to allow using one time passwords (OTPs) and any other text input, Keyboard-interactive is enabled in OpenSSH. This MAY allow for password authentication to work. It is therefore very important to check your PAM configuration so that PAM disallow password authentication for OpenSSH.

OpenSSH 6.3+ (default)

File: /etc/ssh/sshd_config

OpenSSH 5.3+ w/ RedHat/CentOS patch (old)

File: /etc/ssh/sshd_config

PAM configuration for use with the OATH Toolkit or DuoSecurity as second authentication factor.

File: /etc/pam.d/sshd

The PAM stack in this scenario executes the following logic (in our example wefollow the flow with pam_duo.so in use)

• The pam_sepermit.so module is called which checks if the user attempting tolog in via SSH is present in the /etc/security/sepermit.conf.If the user is present in the config file, and the config asserts that the usercan only log in if SELinux is enforcing, and SELinux is not enforcing, thenthe PAM control of required prevents the user from logging in (though PAMwould continue down the stack).
• The password-auth include is commented out and skipped
• The /lib64/security/pam_duo.so module is called and the user is prompted fora duo MFA code.
  • If the code provided is correct PAM immediately permits the user access anddoesn’t continue executing.
  • If the code provided is incorrect, PAM continues down the stack
• The pam_nologin.so checks if the file /etc/nologin exists and if so blocksaccess to the user.
• If at the end of the stack, the single sufficient control of pam_duo.sodid not return a success, PAM defaults to deny and denies the login.

Ciphers and algorithms choice

• When CHACHA20 (OpenSSH 6.5+) is not available, AES-GCM (OpenSSH 6.1+) and any other algorithm using EtM (Encrypt then MAC) disclose the packet length - giving some information to the attacker. Only recent OpenSSH servers and client support CHACHA20.
• NIST curves (ecdh-sha2-nistp512,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp256) are listed for compatibility, but the use of curve25519 is generally preferred.
• SSH protocol 2 supports DH and ECDH key-exchange as well as forward secrecy. Regarding group sizes, please refer to Key management Guidelines.

The various algorithms supported by a particular OpenSSH version can be listed with the following commands:

Configuration

If you have a file containing known_hosts using RSA or ECDSA host key algorithm and the server now supports ed25519 for example, you will get a warning that the host key has changed and will be unable to connect. This means you will have to verify the new host key.

The following configurations expect a recent OpenSSH client, as updating OpenSSH on the client side is generally not an issue.

Modern

This configuration is less compatible and you may not be able to connect to some servers which use insecure, deprecated algorithms. Nevertheless, modern servers will work just fine.

File: ~/.ssh/config

Intermediate (connects to older servers)

This configuration can connect to older OpenSSH servers which run old or intermediate configurations.

File: ~/.ssh/config

Key generation

Large key sizes are used as SSH keys are not renewed very often (see also Key management Guidelines).

Don’t hesitate to create multiple different keys for different usages. In particular, never mix your personal and Mozilla keys.

You may then want to add the new key to your SSH agent or your configuration file (or both).

Protection of user keys

• Protected by strong passphrase.
• Never copied to another system than your own workstation/personal physical disks/tokens.
• Use SSH forwarding or SSH tunneling if you need to jump between hosts. DO NOT maintain unnecessary agent forwarding when unused.

Protection of machine keys

When SSH keys are necessary for automation between systems, it is reasonable to use passphrase-less keys.

• The recommended settings are identical to the user keys.
• The keys must be accessible only by the admin user (root) and/or the system user requiring access.
• Usage of machine keys should be registered in an inventory (a wiki page, ldap, an inventory database), to allow for rapid auditing of key usage across an infrastructure.
• The machine keys should be unique per usage. Each new usage (different service, different script called, etc.) should use a new, different key.
• Only used when strictly necessary.
• Restrict privileges of the account (i.e. no root or “sudoer” machine account).
• Using a ForceCommand returning only the needed results, or only allowing the machine to perform SSH-related tasks such as tunneling is preferred.
• Disable sftp if not needed as it exposes more surface and different logging mechanisms than SSH (and thus scp) itself.

Multi-factor bypass setup for machine keys

Machine keys do not play well with multi-factor authentication as there is no human interaction.

• All logins from machine accounts should be protected by an additional authentication layer (VPN, another machine, etc.).
• All logins from machine accounts are only allowed within the private IP-space, and if possible, only the relevant machine source IPs should be accessible.

File: /etc/ssh/sshd_config (OpenSSH 6.3+)

File: /etc/ssh/sshd_config (OpenSSH 5.3+ w/ RedHat/CentOS patch)

Auditing your existing SSH keys

Existing keys are generally stored in ~/.ssh/ (Linux/OSX) or %APPDATA% (Windows). Look for id_{rsa,ed25519,ecdsa,dsa}, identity, IdentityFile, *.pem, and other identity files.

Display SSH keys information

SSH agent forwarding

ATTENTION SSH Agent forwarding exposes your authentication to the server you’re connecting to. By default, an attacker with control of the server (i.e. root access) can communicate with your agent and use your key to authenticate to other servers without any notification (i.e. impersonate you).For this reason, one must be careful when using SSH agent forwarding. Defaulting to always forwarding the agent is strongly discouraged.Note also that while the attacker can use your key as long as the agent is running and forwarded, he cannot steal/download the key for offline/later use.

SSH forwarding allows you to jump between hosts while keeping your private key on your local computer. This is accomplished by telling SSH to forward the authentication requests back to the ssh-agent of your local computer. SSH forwarding works between as many hosts as needed, each host forwarding new authentication request to the previous host, until the ssh-agent that holds the private key is reached.

On each host, two environment variables are declared for the user enabling ssh-agent:

• $SSH_AUTH_SOCK declares the location of the unix socket that can be used to forward an authentication request back to the previous host.(ex: /tmp/ssh-NjPxtt8779/agent.8779). Only present if using SSH agent forwarding.
• $SSH_CONNECTION shows the source IP and port of the previous host, as well as the local IP and port. (ex: 10.22.248.74 44727 10.8.75.110 22).

To use ssh-agent, add the flag -A to your ssh commands:

You can set the following configuration parameter in your local ssh configuration at ~/.ssh/config.

Hardening the Agent forwarder

It is possible to require confirmation every time the agent is used (i.e. when you connect to a server through the SSH agent) by using the -c flag:

It is also possible to lock the key in the agent after a configurable amount of time, this can be done either for all keys when starting the agent, or per key when adding the keys to the agent with the -t flag:

For MacOSX in particular it’s possible to save the passphrase in the Keychain. If you do so it is strongly recommended to also change the keychain setting to lock itself when the computer is locked, and/or to timeout and lock the keychain. These settings are not controlled by OpenSSH.

Recommended, safer alternatives to SSH agent forwarding

OpenSSH >=7.3

Openssh Passwordless Login

OpenSSH 7.3 onwards allow users to jump through several hosts in a rather automated fashion. It has full support for scp and sftp commands as well as regular ssh.

For example to reach a host behind a bastion/jumphost:

You can also add these lines to your ~/.ssh/config

Older versions of OpenSSH

It is possible to directly forward ports for single jumps instead of forwarding the agent. This has the advantage of never exposing your agent to the servers you’re connecting to.

For example, you can add these lines to your ~/.ssh/config

This will automatically forward the SSH connection over ssh.mozilla.com when you connect to a mozilla.com SSH server.

Key material handling

Key material identifies the cryptographic secrets that compose a key. All key material must be treated as MOZILLA CONFIDENTIAL GROUP RESTRICTED data, meaning that:

• Only individual with specific training and need-to-know should have access to key material.
• Key material must be encrypted on transmission.
• Key material can be stored in clear text, but only with proper access control (limited access).

This includes:

• OpenSSH server keys (/etc/ssh/ssh_host_*key)
• Client keys (~/.ssh/id_{rsa,dsa,ecdsa,ed25519} and ~/.ssh/identity or other client key files).

Client key size and login latency

In order to figure out the impact on performance of using larger keys - such as RSA 4096 bytes keys - on the client side, we have run a few tests:

On an idle, i7 4500 intel CPU using OpenSSH_6.7p1, OpenSSL 1.0.1l and ed25519 server keys the following command is ran 10 times:

time ssh localhost -i .ssh/id_thekey exit

Results:

Client key	Minimum	Maximum	Average
RSA 4096	120ms	145ms	127ms
RSA 2048	120ms	129ms	127ms
ed25519	117ms	138ms	120ms

Keep in mind that these numbers may differ on a slower machine, and that this contains the complete login sequence and therefore is subject to variations. However, it seems safe to say that the latency differences are not significant and do not impact performance sufficiently to cause any concern regardless of the type of key used.

Reference documents