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Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services     Oracle Solaris 11.1 Information Library
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Document Information

Preface

Part I Security Overview

1.  Security Services (Overview)

Part II System, File, and Device Security

2.  Managing Machine Security (Overview)

3.  Controlling Access to Systems (Tasks)

4.  Virus Scanning Service (Tasks)

5.  Controlling Access to Devices (Tasks)

6.  Verifying File Integrity by Using BART (Tasks)

7.  Controlling Access to Files (Tasks)

Part III Roles, Rights Profiles, and Privileges

8.  Using Roles and Privileges (Overview)

9.  Using Role-Based Access Control (Tasks)

10.  Security Attributes in Oracle Solaris (Reference)

Part IV Cryptographic Services

11.  Cryptographic Framework (Overview)

12.  Cryptographic Framework (Tasks)

13.  Key Management Framework

Part V Authentication Services and Secure Communication

14.  Using Pluggable Authentication Modules

15.  Using Secure Shell

16.  Secure Shell (Reference)

A Typical Secure Shell Session

Session Characteristics in Secure Shell

Authentication and Key Exchange in Secure Shell

Acquiring GSS Credentials in Secure Shell

Command Execution and Data Forwarding in Secure Shell

Client and Server Configuration in Secure Shell

Client Configuration in Secure Shell

Server Configuration in Secure Shell

Keywords in Secure Shell

Host-Specific Parameters in Secure Shell

Secure Shell and Login Environment Variables

Maintaining Known Hosts in Secure Shell

Secure Shell Files

Secure Shell Commands

17.  Using Simple Authentication and Security Layer

18.  Network Services Authentication (Tasks)

Part VI Kerberos Service

19.  Introduction to the Kerberos Service

20.  Planning for the Kerberos Service

21.  Configuring the Kerberos Service (Tasks)

22.  Kerberos Error Messages and Troubleshooting

23.  Administering Kerberos Principals and Policies (Tasks)

24.  Using Kerberos Applications (Tasks)

25.  The Kerberos Service (Reference)

Part VII Auditing in Oracle Solaris

26.  Auditing (Overview)

27.  Planning for Auditing

28.  Managing Auditing (Tasks)

29.  Auditing (Reference)

Glossary

Index

A Typical Secure Shell Session

The Secure Shell daemon (sshd) is normally started at boot time when network services are started. The daemon listens for connections from clients. A Secure Shell session begins when the user runs an ssh, scp, or sftp command. A new sshd daemon is forked for each incoming connection. The forked daemons handle key exchange, encryption, authentication, command execution, and data exchange with the client. These session characteristics are determined by client-side configuration files and server-side configuration files. Command-line arguments can override the settings in the configuration files.

The client and server must authenticate themselves to each other. After successful authentication, the user can execute commands remotely and copy data between hosts.

Session Characteristics in Secure Shell

The server-side behavior of the sshd daemon is controlled by keyword settings in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file. For example, the sshd_config file controls which types of authentication are permitted for accessing the server. The server-side behavior can also be controlled by the command-line options when the sshd daemon is started.

The behavior on the client side is controlled by Secure Shell keywords in this order of precedence:

For example, a user can override a system-wide configuration Ciphers setting that prefers aes128-ctr by specifying -c aes256-ctr,aes128-ctr,arcfour on the command line. The first cipher, aes256-ctr, is now preferred.

Authentication and Key Exchange in Secure Shell

The Secure Shell protocol supports client user/host authentication and server host authentication. Cryptographic keys are exchanged for the protection of Secure Shell sessions. Secure Shell provides various methods for authentication and key exchange. Some methods are optional. Client authentication mechanisms are listed in Table 15-1. Servers are authenticated by using known host public keys.

For authentication, Secure Shell supports user authentication and generic interactive authentication, which usually involves passwords. Secure Shell also supports authentication with user public keys and with trusted host public keys. The keys can be RSA or DSA. Session key exchanges consist of Diffie-Hellman ephemeral key exchanges that are signed in the server authentication step. Additionally, Secure Shell can use GSS credentials for authentication.

Acquiring GSS Credentials in Secure Shell

To use GSS-API for authentication in Secure Shell, the server must have GSS-API acceptor credentials and the client must have GSS-API initiator credentials. Support is available for mech_dh and for mech_krb5.

For mech_dh, the server has GSS-API acceptor credentials if root has run the keylogin command.

For mech_krb5, the server has GSS-API acceptor credentials when the host principal that corresponds to the server has a valid entry in /etc/krb5/krb5.keytab.

The client has initiator credentials for mech_dh if one of the following has been done:

The client has initiator credentials for mech_krb5 if one of the following has been done:

For the use of mech_dh in secure RPC, see Chapter 18, Network Services Authentication (Tasks). For the use of mech_krb5, see Chapter 19, Introduction to the Kerberos Service. For more information about mechanisms, see the mech(4) and mech_spnego(5) man pages.

Command Execution and Data Forwarding in Secure Shell

After authentication is complete, the user can use Secure Shell, generally by requesting a shell or executing a command. Through the ssh command options, the user can make requests. Requests can include allocating a pseudo-tty, forwarding X11 connections or TCP/IP connections, or enabling an ssh-agent authentication program over a secure connection.

The basic components of a user session are as follows:

  1. The user requests a shell or the execution of a command, which begins the session mode.

    In this mode, data is sent or received through the terminal on the client side. On the server side, data is sent through the shell or a command.

  2. When data transfer is complete, the user program terminates.

  3. All X11 forwarding and TCP/IP forwarding is stopped, except for those connections that already exist. Existing X11 connections and TCP/IP connections remain open.

  4. The server sends an exit status message to the client. When all connections are closed, such as forwarded ports that had remained open, the client closes the connection to the server. Then, the client exits.