.\" -*- nroff -*- .\" .\" Author: Tatu Ylonen .\" Copyright (c) 1995 Tatu Ylonen , Espoo, Finland .\" All rights reserved .\" .\" As far as I am concerned, the code I have written for this software .\" can be used freely for any purpose. Any derived versions of this .\" software must be clearly marked as such, and if the derived work is .\" incompatible with the protocol description in the RFC file, it must be .\" called by a name other than "ssh" or "Secure Shell". .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1999,2000 Markus Friedl. All rights reserved. .\" Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron Campbell. All rights reserved. .\" Copyright (c) 1999 Theo de Raadt. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES .\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. .\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, .\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT .\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, .\" DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY .\" THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT .\" (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF .\" THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" $OpenBSD: ssh.1,v 1.138 2001/09/19 19:24:19 stevesk Exp $ .Dd September 25, 1999 .Dt SSH 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm ssh .Nd OpenSSH SSH client (remote login program) .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm ssh .Op Fl l Ar login_name .Ar hostname | user@hostname .Op Ar command .Pp .Nm ssh .Op Fl afgknqstvxACNPTX1246 .Op Fl b Ar bind_address .Op Fl c Ar cipher_spec .Op Fl e Ar escape_char .Op Fl i Ar identity_file .Op Fl l Ar login_name .Op Fl m Ar mac_spec .Op Fl o Ar option .Op Fl p Ar port .Op Fl F Ar configfile .Oo Fl L Xo .Sm off .Ar port : .Ar host : .Ar hostport .Sm on .Xc .Oc .Oo Fl R Xo .Sm off .Ar port : .Ar host : .Ar hostport .Sm on .Xc .Oc .Op Fl D Ar port .Ar hostname | user@hostname .Op Ar command .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm (SSH client) is a program for logging into a remote machine and for executing commands on a remote machine. It is intended to replace rlogin and rsh, and provide secure encrypted communications between two untrusted hosts over an insecure network. X11 connections and arbitrary TCP/IP ports can also be forwarded over the secure channel. .Pp .Nm connects and logs into the specified .Ar hostname . The user must prove his/her identity to the remote machine using one of several methods depending on the protocol version used: .Pp .Ss SSH protocol version 1 .Pp First, if the machine the user logs in from is listed in .Pa /etc/hosts.equiv or .Pa /etc/shosts.equiv on the remote machine, and the user names are the same on both sides, the user is immediately permitted to log in. Second, if .Pa \&.rhosts or .Pa \&.shosts exists in the user's home directory on the remote machine and contains a line containing the name of the client machine and the name of the user on that machine, the user is permitted to log in. This form of authentication alone is normally not allowed by the server because it is not secure. .Pp The second authentication method is the .Pa rhosts or .Pa hosts.equiv method combined with RSA-based host authentication. It means that if the login would be permitted by .Pa $HOME/.rhosts , .Pa $HOME/.shosts , .Pa /etc/hosts.equiv , or .Pa /etc/shosts.equiv , and if additionally the server can verify the client's host key (see .Pa /etc/ssh_known_hosts and .Pa $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts in the .Sx FILES section), only then login is permitted. This authentication method closes security holes due to IP spoofing, DNS spoofing and routing spoofing. [Note to the administrator: .Pa /etc/hosts.equiv , .Pa $HOME/.rhosts , and the rlogin/rsh protocol in general, are inherently insecure and should be disabled if security is desired.] .Pp As a third authentication method, .Nm supports RSA based authentication. The scheme is based on public-key cryptography: there are cryptosystems where encryption and decryption are done using separate keys, and it is not possible to derive the decryption key from the encryption key. RSA is one such system. The idea is that each user creates a public/private key pair for authentication purposes. The server knows the public key, and only the user knows the private key. The file .Pa $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys lists the public keys that are permitted for logging in. When the user logs in, the .Nm program tells the server which key pair it would like to use for authentication. The server checks if this key is permitted, and if so, sends the user (actually the .Nm program running on behalf of the user) a challenge, a random number, encrypted by the user's public key. The challenge can only be decrypted using the proper private key. The user's client then decrypts the challenge using the private key, proving that he/she knows the private key but without disclosing it to the server. .Pp .Nm implements the RSA authentication protocol automatically. The user creates his/her RSA key pair by running .Xr ssh-keygen 1 . This stores the private key in .Pa $HOME/.ssh/identity and the public key in .Pa $HOME/.ssh/identity.pub in the user's home directory. The user should then copy the .Pa identity.pub to .Pa $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys in his/her home directory on the remote machine (the .Pa authorized_keys file corresponds to the conventional .Pa $HOME/.rhosts file, and has one key per line, though the lines can be very long). After this, the user can log in without giving the password. RSA authentication is much more secure than rhosts authentication. .Pp The most convenient way to use RSA authentication may be with an authentication agent. See .Xr ssh-agent 1 for more information. .Pp If other authentication methods fail, .Nm prompts the user for a password. The password is sent to the remote host for checking; however, since all communications are encrypted, the password cannot be seen by someone listening on the network. .Pp .Ss SSH protocol version 2 .Pp When a user connects using the protocol version 2 different authentication methods are available. Using the default values for .Cm PreferredAuthentications , the client will try to authenticate first using the hostbased method; if this method fails public key authentication is attempted, and finally if this method fails keyboard-interactive and password authentication are tried. .Pp The public key method is similar to RSA authentication described in the previous section and allows the RSA or DSA algorithm to be used: The client uses his private key, .Pa $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa or .Pa $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa , to sign the session identifier and sends the result to the server. The server checks whether the matching public key is listed in .Pa $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys and grants access if both the key is found and the signature is correct. The session identifier is derived from a shared Diffie-Hellman value and is only known to the client and the server. .Pp If public key authentication fails or is not available a password can be sent encrypted to the remote host for proving the user's identity. .Pp Additionally, .Nm supports hostbased or challenge response authentication. .Pp Protocol 2 provides additional mechanisms for confidentiality (the traffic is encrypted using 3DES, Blowfish, CAST128 or Arcfour) and integrity (hmac-md5, hmac-sha1). Note that protocol 1 lacks a strong mechanism for ensuring the integrity of the connection. .Pp .Ss Login session and remote execution .Pp When the user's identity has been accepted by the server, the server either executes the given command, or logs into the machine and gives the user a normal shell on the remote machine. All communication with the remote command or shell will be automatically encrypted. .Pp If a pseudo-terminal has been allocated (normal login session), the user may use the escape characters noted below. .Pp If no pseudo tty has been allocated, the session is transparent and can be used to reliably transfer binary data. On most systems, setting the escape character to .Dq none will also make the session transparent even if a tty is used. .Pp The session terminates when the command or shell on the remote machine exits and all X11 and TCP/IP connections have been closed. The exit status of the remote program is returned as the exit status of .Nm ssh . .Pp .Ss Escape Characters .Pp When a pseudo terminal has been requested, ssh supports a number of functions through the use of an escape character. .Pp A single tilde character can be sent as .Ic ~~ or by following the tilde by a character other than those described below. The escape character must always follow a newline to be interpreted as special. The escape character can be changed in configuration files using the .Cm EscapeChar configuration directive or on the command line by the .Fl e option. .Pp The supported escapes (assuming the default .Ql ~ ) are: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Cm ~. Disconnect .It Cm ~^Z Background ssh .It Cm ~# List forwarded connections .It Cm ~& Background ssh at logout when waiting for forwarded connection / X11 sessions to terminate (protocol version 1 only) .It Cm ~? Display a list of escape characters .It Cm ~R Request rekeying of the connection (only useful for SSH protocol version 2 and if the peer supports it) .El .Pp .Ss X11 and TCP forwarding .Pp If the .Cm ForwardX11 variable is set to .Dq yes (or, see the description of the .Fl X and .Fl x options described later) and the user is using X11 (the .Ev DISPLAY environment variable is set), the connection to the X11 display is automatically forwarded to the remote side in such a way that any X11 programs started from the shell (or command) will go through the encrypted channel, and the connection to the real X server will be made from the local machine. The user should not manually set .Ev DISPLAY . Forwarding of X11 connections can be configured on the command line or in configuration files. .Pp The .Ev DISPLAY value set by .Nm will point to the server machine, but with a display number greater than zero. This is normal, and happens because .Nm creates a .Dq proxy X server on the server machine for forwarding the connections over the encrypted channel. .Pp .Nm will also automatically set up Xauthority data on the server machine. For this purpose, it will generate a random authorization cookie, store it in Xauthority on the server, and verify that any forwarded connections carry this cookie and replace it by the real cookie when the connection is opened. The real authentication cookie is never sent to the server machine (and no cookies are sent in the plain). .Pp If the user is using an authentication agent, the connection to the agent is automatically forwarded to the remote side unless disabled on the command line or in a configuration file. .Pp Forwarding of arbitrary TCP/IP connections over the secure channel can be specified either on the command line or in a configuration file. One possible application of TCP/IP forwarding is a secure connection to an electronic purse; another is going through firewalls. .Pp .Ss Server authentication .Pp .Nm automatically maintains and checks a database containing identifications for all hosts it has ever been used with. Host keys are stored in .Pa $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts in the user's home directory. Additionally, the file .Pa /etc/ssh_known_hosts is automatically checked for known hosts. Any new hosts are automatically added to the user's file. If a host's identification ever changes, .Nm warns about this and disables password authentication to prevent a trojan horse from getting the user's password. Another purpose of this mechanism is to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks which could otherwise be used to circumvent the encryption. The .Cm StrictHostKeyChecking option (see below) can be used to prevent logins to machines whose host key is not known or has changed. .Pp The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Fl a Disables forwarding of the authentication agent connection. .It Fl A Enables forwarding of the authentication agent connection. This can also be specified on a per-host basis in a configuration file. .It Fl b Ar bind_address Specify the interface to transmit from on machines with multiple interfaces or aliased addresses. .It Fl c Ar blowfish|3des|des Selects the cipher to use for encrypting the session. .Ar 3des is used by default. It is believed to be secure. .Ar 3des (triple-des) is an encrypt-decrypt-encrypt triple with three different keys. .Ar blowfish is a fast block cipher, it appears very secure and is much faster than .Ar 3des . .Ar des is only supported in the .Nm client for interoperability with legacy protocol 1 implementations that do not support the .Ar 3des cipher. Its use is strongly discouraged due to cryptographic weaknesses. .It Fl c Ar cipher_spec Additionally, for protocol version 2 a comma-separated list of ciphers can be specified in order of preference. See .Cm Ciphers for more information. .It Fl e Ar ch|^ch|none Sets the escape character for sessions with a pty (default: .Ql ~ ) . The escape character is only recognized at the beginning of a line. The escape character followed by a dot .Pq Ql \&. closes the connection, followed by control-Z suspends the connection, and followed by itself sends the escape character once. Setting the character to .Dq none disables any escapes and makes the session fully transparent. .It Fl f Requests .Nm to go to background just before command execution. This is useful if .Nm is going to ask for passwords or passphrases, but the user wants it in the background. This implies .Fl n . The recommended way to start X11 programs at a remote site is with something like .Ic ssh -f host xterm . .It Fl g Allows remote hosts to connect to local forwarded ports. .It Fl i Ar identity_file Selects the file from which the identity (private key) for RSA or DSA authentication is read. Default is .Pa $HOME/.ssh/identity in the user's home directory. Identity files may also be specified on a per-host basis in the configuration file. It is possible to have multiple .Fl i options (and multiple identities specified in configuration files). .It Fl I Ar smartcard_device Specifies which smartcard device to use. The argument is the device .Nm should use to communicate with a smartcard used for storing the user's private RSA key. .It Fl k Disables forwarding of Kerberos tickets and AFS tokens. This may also be specified on a per-host basis in the configuration file. .It Fl l Ar login_name Specifies the user to log in as on the remote machine. This also may be specified on a per-host basis in the configuration file. .It Fl m Ar mac_spec Additionally, for protocol version 2 a comma-separated list of MAC (message authentication code) algorithms can be specified in order of preference. See the .Cm MACs keyword for more information. .It Fl n Redirects stdin from .Pa /dev/null (actually, prevents reading from stdin). This must be used when .Nm is run in the background. A common trick is to use this to run X11 programs on a remote machine. For example, .Ic ssh -n shadows.cs.hut.fi emacs & will start an emacs on shadows.cs.hut.fi, and the X11 connection will be automatically forwarded over an encrypted channel. The .Nm program will be put in the background. (This does not work if .Nm needs to ask for a password or passphrase; see also the .Fl f option.) .It Fl N Do not execute a remote command. This is useful for just forwarding ports (protocol version 2 only). .It Fl o Ar option Can be used to give options in the format used in the configuration file. This is useful for specifying options for which there is no separate command-line flag. .It Fl p Ar port Port to connect to on the remote host. This can be specified on a per-host basis in the configuration file. .It Fl P Use a non-privileged port for outgoing connections. This can be used if a firewall does not permit connections from privileged ports. Note that this option turns off .Cm RhostsAuthentication and .Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication for older servers. .It Fl q Quiet mode. Causes all warning and diagnostic messages to be suppressed. Only fatal errors are displayed. .It Fl s May be used to request invocation of a subsystem on the remote system. Subsystems are a feature of the SSH2 protocol which facilitate the use of SSH as a secure transport for other applications (eg. sftp). The subsystem is specified as the remote command. .It Fl t Force pseudo-tty allocation. This can be used to execute arbitrary screen-based programs on a remote machine, which can be very useful, e.g., when implementing menu services. Multiple .Fl t options force tty allocation, even if .Nm has no local tty. .It Fl T Disable pseudo-tty allocation. .It Fl v Verbose mode. Causes .Nm to print debugging messages about its progress. This is helpful in debugging connection, authentication, and configuration problems. Multiple .Fl v options increases the verbosity. Maximum is 3. .It Fl x Disables X11 forwarding. .It Fl X Enables X11 forwarding. This can also be specified on a per-host basis in a configuration file. .It Fl C Requests compression of all data (including stdin, stdout, stderr, and data for forwarded X11 and TCP/IP connections). The compression algorithm is the same used by .Xr gzip 1 , and the .Dq level can be controlled by the .Cm CompressionLevel option (see below). Compression is desirable on modem lines and other slow connections, but will only slow down things on fast networks. The default value can be set on a host-by-host basis in the configuration files; see the .Cm Compression option below. .It Fl F Ar configfile Specifies an alternative per-user configuration file. If a configuration file is given on the command line, the system-wide configuration file .Pq Pa /etc/ssh_config will be ignored. The default for the per-user configuration file is .Pa $HOME/.ssh/config . .It Fl L Ar port:host:hostport Specifies that the given port on the local (client) host is to be forwarded to the given host and port on the remote side. This works by allocating a socket to listen to .Ar port on the local side, and whenever a connection is made to this port, the connection is forwarded over the secure channel, and a connection is made to .Ar host port .Ar hostport from the remote machine. Port forwardings can also be specified in the configuration file. Only root can forward privileged ports. IPv6 addresses can be specified with an alternative syntax: .Ar port/host/hostport .It Fl R Ar port:host:hostport Specifies that the given port on the remote (server) host is to be forwarded to the given host and port on the local side. This works by allocating a socket to listen to .Ar port on the remote side, and whenever a connection is made to this port, the connection is forwarded over the secure channel, and a connection is made to .Ar host port .Ar hostport from the local machine. Port forwardings can also be specified in the configuration file. Privileged ports can be forwarded only when logging in as root on the remote machine. IPv6 addresses can be specified with an alternative syntax: .Ar port/host/hostport .It Fl D Ar port Specifies a local .Dq dynamic application-level port forwarding. This works by allocating a socket to listen to .Ar port on the local side, and whenever a connection is made to this port, the connection is forwarded over the secure channel, and the application protocol is then used to determine where to connect to from the remote machine. Currently the SOCKS4 protocol is supported, and .Nm will act as a SOCKS4 server. Only root can forward privileged ports. Dynamic port forwardings can also be specified in the configuration file. .It Fl 1 Forces .Nm to try protocol version 1 only. .It Fl 2 Forces .Nm to try protocol version 2 only. .It Fl 4 Forces .Nm to use IPv4 addresses only. .It Fl 6 Forces .Nm to use IPv6 addresses only. .El .Sh CONFIGURATION FILES .Nm obtains configuration data from the following sources in the following order: command line options, user's configuration file .Pq Pa $HOME/.ssh/config , and system-wide configuration file .Pq Pa /etc/ssh_config . For each parameter, the first obtained value will be used. The configuration files contain sections bracketed by .Dq Host specifications, and that section is only applied for hosts that match one of the patterns given in the specification. The matched host name is the one given on the command line. .Pp Since the first obtained value for each parameter is used, more host-specific declarations should be given near the beginning of the file, and general defaults at the end. .Pp The configuration file has the following format: .Pp Empty lines and lines starting with .Ql # are comments. .Pp Otherwise a line is of the format .Dq keyword arguments . Configuration options may be separated by whitespace or optional whitespace and exactly one .Ql = ; the latter format is useful to avoid the need to quote whitespace when specifying configuration options using the .Nm ssh , .Nm scp and .Nm sftp .Fl o option. .Pp The possible keywords and their meanings are as follows (note that keywords are case-insensitive and arguments are case-sensitive): .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Cm Host Restricts the following declarations (up to the next .Cm Host keyword) to be only for those hosts that match one of the patterns given after the keyword. .Ql \&* and .Ql ? can be used as wildcards in the patterns. A single .Ql \&* as a pattern can be used to provide global defaults for all hosts. The host is the .Ar hostname argument given on the command line (i.e., the name is not converted to a canonicalized host name before matching). .It Cm AFSTokenPassing Specifies whether to pass AFS tokens to remote host. The argument to this keyword must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . This option applies to protocol version 1 only. .It Cm BatchMode If set to .Dq yes , passphrase/password querying will be disabled. This option is useful in scripts and other batch jobs where no user is present to supply the password. The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq no . .It Cm BindAddress Specify the interface to transmit from on machines with multiple interfaces or aliased addresses. Note that this option does not work if .Cm UsePrivilegedPort is set to .Dq yes . .It Cm CheckHostIP If this flag is set to .Dq yes , ssh will additionally check the host IP address in the .Pa known_hosts file. This allows ssh to detect if a host key changed due to DNS spoofing. If the option is set to .Dq no , the check will not be executed. The default is .Dq yes . .It Cm Cipher Specifies the cipher to use for encrypting the session in protocol version 1. Currently, .Dq blowfish , .Dq 3des , and .Dq des are supported. .Ar des is only supported in the .Nm client for interoperability with legacy protocol 1 implementations that do not support the .Ar 3des cipher. Its use is strongly discouraged due to cryptographic weaknesses. The default is .Dq 3des . .It Cm Ciphers Specifies the ciphers allowed for protocol version 2 in order of preference. Multiple ciphers must be comma-separated. The default is .Pp .Bd -literal ``aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour, aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc'' .Ed .It Cm ClearAllForwardings Specifies that all local, remote and dynamic port forwardings specified in the configuration files or on the command line be cleared. This option is primarily useful when used from the .Nm command line to clear port forwardings set in configuration files, and is automatically set by .Xr scp 1 and .Xr sftp 1 . The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq no . .It Cm Compression Specifies whether to use compression. The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq no . .It Cm CompressionLevel Specifies the compression level to use if compression is enabled. The argument must be an integer from 1 (fast) to 9 (slow, best). The default level is 6, which is good for most applications. The meaning of the values is the same as in .Xr gzip 1 . Note that this option applies to protocol version 1 only. .It Cm ConnectionAttempts Specifies the number of tries (one per second) to make before falling back to rsh or exiting. The argument must be an integer. This may be useful in scripts if the connection sometimes fails. The default is 1. .It Cm DynamicForward Specifies that a TCP/IP port on the local machine be forwarded over the secure channel, and the application protocol is then used to determine where to connect to from the remote machine. The argument must be a port number. Currently the SOCKS4 protocol is supported, and .Nm will act as a SOCKS4 server. Multiple forwardings may be specified, and additional forwardings can be given on the command line. Only the superuser can forward privileged ports. .It Cm EscapeChar Sets the escape character (default: .Ql ~ ) . The escape character can also be set on the command line. The argument should be a single character, .Ql ^ followed by a letter, or .Dq none to disable the escape character entirely (making the connection transparent for binary data). .It Cm FallBackToRsh Specifies that if connecting via .Nm fails due to a connection refused error (there is no .Xr sshd 8 listening on the remote host), .Xr rsh 1 should automatically be used instead (after a suitable warning about the session being unencrypted). The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq no . .It Cm ForwardAgent Specifies whether the connection to the authentication agent (if any) will be forwarded to the remote machine. The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq no . .It Cm ForwardX11 Specifies whether X11 connections will be automatically redirected over the secure channel and .Ev DISPLAY set. The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq no . .It Cm GatewayPorts Specifies whether remote hosts are allowed to connect to local forwarded ports. By default, .Nm binds local port forwardings to the loopback addresss. This prevents other remote hosts from connecting to forwarded ports. .Cm GatewayPorts can be used to specify that .Nm should bind local port forwardings to the wildcard address, thus allowing remote hosts to connect to forwarded ports. The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq no . .It Cm GlobalKnownHostsFile Specifies a file to use for the global host key database instead of .Pa /etc/ssh_known_hosts . .It Cm HostbasedAuthentication Specifies whether to try rhosts based authentication with public key authentication. The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq no . This option applies to protocol version 2 only and is similar to .Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication . .It Cm HostKeyAlgorithms Specifies the protocol version 2 host key algorithms that the client wants to use in order of preference. The default for this option is: .Dq ssh-rsa,ssh-dss .It Cm HostKeyAlias Specifies an alias that should be used instead of the real host name when looking up or saving the host key in the host key database files. This option is useful for tunneling ssh connections or for multiple servers running on a single host. .It Cm HostName Specifies the real host name to log into. This can be used to specify nicknames or abbreviations for hosts. Default is the name given on the command line. Numeric IP addresses are also permitted (both on the command line and in .Cm HostName specifications). .It Cm IdentityFile Specifies the file from which the user's RSA or DSA authentication identity is read (default .Pa $HOME/.ssh/identity in the user's home directory). Additionally, any identities represented by the authentication agent will be used for authentication. The file name may use the tilde syntax to refer to a user's home directory. It is possible to have multiple identity files specified in configuration files; all these identities will be tried in sequence. .It Cm KeepAlive Specifies whether the system should send keepalive messages to the other side. If they are sent, death of the connection or crash of one of the machines will be properly noticed. However, this means that connections will die if the route is down temporarily, and some people find it annoying. .Pp The default is .Dq yes (to send keepalives), and the client will notice if the network goes down or the remote host dies. This is important in scripts, and many users want it too. .Pp To disable keepalives, the value should be set to .Dq no in both the server and the client configuration files. .It Cm KerberosAuthentication Specifies whether Kerberos authentication will be used. The argument to this keyword must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . .It Cm KerberosTgtPassing Specifies whether a Kerberos TGT will be forwarded to the server. This will only work if the Kerberos server is actually an AFS kaserver. The argument to this keyword must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . .It Cm LocalForward Specifies that a TCP/IP port on the local machine be forwarded over the secure channel to the specified host and port from the remote machine. The first argument must be a port number, and the second must be .Ar host:port . IPv6 addresses can be specified with an alternative syntax: .Ar host/port . Multiple forwardings may be specified, and additional forwardings can be given on the command line. Only the superuser can forward privileged ports. .It Cm LogLevel Gives the verbosity level that is used when logging messages from .Nm ssh . The possible values are: QUIET, FATAL, ERROR, INFO, VERBOSE and DEBUG. The default is INFO. .It Cm MACs Specifies the MAC (message authentication code) algorithms in order of preference. The MAC algorithm is used in protocol version 2 for data integrity protection. Multiple algorithms must be comma-separated. The default is .Dq hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,hmac-ripemd160,hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 . .It Cm NumberOfPasswordPrompts Specifies the number of password prompts before giving up. The argument to this keyword must be an integer. Default is 3. .It Cm PasswordAuthentication Specifies whether to use password authentication. The argument to this keyword must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq yes . .It Cm Port Specifies the port number to connect on the remote host. Default is 22. .It Cm PreferredAuthentications Specifies the order in which the client should try protocol 2 authentication methods. This allows a client to prefer one method (e.g. .Cm keyboard-interactive ) over another method (e.g. .Cm password ) The default for this option is: .Dq hostbased,publickey,keyboard-interactive,password .It Cm Protocol Specifies the protocol versions .Nm should support in order of preference. The possible values are .Dq 1 and .Dq 2 . Multiple versions must be comma-separated. The default is .Dq 2,1 . This means that .Nm tries version 2 and falls back to version 1 if version 2 is not available. .It Cm ProxyCommand Specifies the command to use to connect to the server. The command string extends to the end of the line, and is executed with .Pa /bin/sh . In the command string, .Ql %h will be substituted by the host name to connect and .Ql %p by the port. The command can be basically anything, and should read from its standard input and write to its standard output. It should eventually connect an .Xr sshd 8 server running on some machine, or execute .Ic sshd -i somewhere. Host key management will be done using the HostName of the host being connected (defaulting to the name typed by the user). Note that .Cm CheckHostIP is not available for connects with a proxy command. .Pp .It Cm PubkeyAuthentication Specifies whether to try public key authentication. The argument to this keyword must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq yes . This option applies to protocol version 2 only. .It Cm RemoteForward Specifies that a TCP/IP port on the remote machine be forwarded over the secure channel to the specified host and port from the local machine. The first argument must be a port number, and the second must be .Ar host:port . IPv6 addresses can be specified with an alternative syntax: .Ar host/port . Multiple forwardings may be specified, and additional forwardings can be given on the command line. Only the superuser can forward privileged ports. .It Cm RhostsAuthentication Specifies whether to try rhosts based authentication. Note that this declaration only affects the client side and has no effect whatsoever on security. Disabling rhosts authentication may reduce authentication time on slow connections when rhosts authentication is not used. Most servers do not permit RhostsAuthentication because it is not secure (see .Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication ) . The argument to this keyword must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq yes . This option applies to protocol version 1 only. .It Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication Specifies whether to try rhosts based authentication with RSA host authentication. The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq yes . This option applies to protocol version 1 only. .It Cm RSAAuthentication Specifies whether to try RSA authentication. The argument to this keyword must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . RSA authentication will only be attempted if the identity file exists, or an authentication agent is running. The default is .Dq yes . Note that this option applies to protocol version 1 only. .It Cm ChallengeResponseAuthentication Specifies whether to use challenge response authentication. The argument to this keyword must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq yes . .It Cm SmartcardDevice Specifies which smartcard device to use. The argument to this keyword is the device .Nm should use to communicate with a smartcard used for storing the user's private RSA key. By default, no device is specified and smartcard support is not activated. .It Cm StrictHostKeyChecking If this flag is set to .Dq yes , .Nm will never automatically add host keys to the .Pa $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts file, and refuses to connect to hosts whose host key has changed. This provides maximum protection against trojan horse attacks, however, can be annoying when the .Pa /etc/ssh_known_hosts file is poorly maintained, or connections to new hosts are frequently made. This option forces the user to manually add all new hosts. If this flag is set to .Dq no , .Nm will automatically add new host keys to the user known hosts files. If this flag is set to .Dq ask , new host keys will be added to the user known host files only after the user has confirmed that is what they really want to do, and .Nm will refuse to connect to hosts whose host key has changed. The host keys of known hosts will be verified automatically in all cases. The argument must be .Dq yes , .Dq no or .Dq ask . The default is .Dq ask . .It Cm UsePrivilegedPort Specifies whether to use a privileged port for outgoing connections. The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . The default is .Dq no . Note that this option must be set to .Dq yes if .Cm RhostsAuthentication and .Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication authentications are needed with older servers. .It Cm User Specifies the user to log in as. This can be useful when a different user name is used on different machines. This saves the trouble of having to remember to give the user name on the command line. .It Cm UserKnownHostsFile Specifies a file to use for the user host key database instead of .Pa $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts . .It Cm UseRsh Specifies that rlogin/rsh should be used for this host. It is possible that the host does not at all support the .Nm protocol. This causes .Nm to immediately execute .Xr rsh 1 . All other options (except .Cm HostName ) are ignored if this has been specified. The argument must be .Dq yes or .Dq no . .It Cm XAuthLocation Specifies the location of the .Xr xauth 1 program. The default is .Pa /usr/X11R6/bin/xauth . .El .Sh ENVIRONMENT .Nm will normally set the following environment variables: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Ev DISPLAY The .Ev DISPLAY variable indicates the location of the X11 server. It is automatically set by .Nm to point to a value of the form .Dq hostname:n where hostname indicates the host where the shell runs, and n is an integer >= 1. .Nm uses this special value to forward X11 connections over the secure channel. The user should normally not set .Ev DISPLAY explicitly, as that will render the X11 connection insecure (and will require the user to manually copy any required authorization cookies). .It Ev HOME Set to the path of the user's home directory. .It Ev LOGNAME Synonym for .Ev USER ; set for compatibility with systems that use this variable. .It Ev MAIL Set to the path of the user's mailbox. .It Ev PATH Set to the default .Ev PATH , as specified when compiling .Nm ssh . .It Ev SSH_ASKPASS If .Nm needs a passphrase, it will read the passphrase from the current terminal if it was run from a terminal. If .Nm does not have a terminal associated with it but .Ev DISPLAY and .Ev SSH_ASKPASS are set, it will execute the program specified by .Ev SSH_ASKPASS and open an X11 window to read the passphrase. This is particularly useful when calling .Nm from a .Pa .Xsession or related script. (Note that on some machines it may be necessary to redirect the input from .Pa /dev/null to make this work.) .It Ev SSH_AUTH_SOCK Identifies the path of a unix-domain socket used to communicate with the agent. .It Ev SSH_CLIENT Identifies the client end of the connection. The variable contains three space-separated values: client ip-address, client port number, and server port number. .It Ev SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND The variable contains the original command line if a forced command is executed. It can be used to extract the original arguments. .It Ev SSH_TTY This is set to the name of the tty (path to the device) associated with the current shell or command. If the current session has no tty, this variable is not set. .It Ev TZ The timezone variable is set to indicate the present timezone if it was set when the daemon was started (i.e., the daemon passes the value on to new connections). .It Ev USER Set to the name of the user logging in. .El .Pp Additionally, .Nm reads .Pa $HOME/.ssh/environment , and adds lines of the format .Dq VARNAME=value to the environment. .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Pa $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts Records host keys for all hosts the user has logged into that are not in .Pa /etc/ssh_known_hosts . See .Xr sshd 8 . .It Pa $HOME/.ssh/identity, $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa, $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa Contains the authentication identity of the user. They are for protocol 1 RSA, protocol 2 DSA, and protocol 2 RSA, respectively. These files contain sensitive data and should be readable by the user but not accessible by others (read/write/execute). Note that .Nm ignores a private key file if it is accessible by others. It is possible to specify a passphrase when generating the key; the passphrase will be used to encrypt the sensitive part of this file using 3DES. .It Pa $HOME/.ssh/identity.pub, $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa.pub, $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub Contains the public key for authentication (public part of the identity file in human-readable form). The contents of the .Pa $HOME/.ssh/identity.pub file should be added to .Pa $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys on all machines where the user wishes to log in using protocol version 1 RSA authentication. The contents of the .Pa $HOME/.ssh/id_dsa.pub and .Pa $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file should be added to .Pa $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys on all machines where the user wishes to log in using protocol version 2 DSA/RSA authentication. These files are not sensitive and can (but need not) be readable by anyone. These files are never used automatically and are not necessary; they are only provided for the convenience of the user. .It Pa $HOME/.ssh/config This is the per-user configuration file. The format of this file is described above. This file is used by the .Nm client. This file does not usually contain any sensitive information, but the recommended permissions are read/write for the user, and not accessible by others. .It Pa $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys Lists the public keys (RSA/DSA) that can be used for logging in as this user. The format of this file is described in the .Xr sshd 8 manual page. In the simplest form the format is the same as the .pub identity files. This file is not highly sensitive, but the recommended permissions are read/write for the user, and not accessible by others. .It Pa /etc/ssh_known_hosts Systemwide list of known host keys. This file should be prepared by the system administrator to contain the public host keys of all machines in the organization. This file should be world-readable. This file contains public keys, one per line, in the following format (fields separated by spaces): system name, public key and optional comment field. When different names are used for the same machine, all such names should be listed, separated by commas. The format is described on the .Xr sshd 8 manual page. .Pp The canonical system name (as returned by name servers) is used by .Xr sshd 8 to verify the client host when logging in; other names are needed because .Nm does not convert the user-supplied name to a canonical name before checking the key, because someone with access to the name servers would then be able to fool host authentication. .It Pa /etc/ssh_config Systemwide configuration file. This file provides defaults for those values that are not specified in the user's configuration file, and for those users who do not have a configuration file. This file must be world-readable. .It Pa $HOME/.rhosts This file is used in .Pa \&.rhosts authentication to list the host/user pairs that are permitted to log in. (Note that this file is also used by rlogin and rsh, which makes using this file insecure.) Each line of the file contains a host name (in the canonical form returned by name servers), and then a user name on that host, separated by a space. On some machines this file may need to be world-readable if the user's home directory is on a NFS partition, because .Xr sshd 8 reads it as root. Additionally, this file must be owned by the user, and must not have write permissions for anyone else. The recommended permission for most machines is read/write for the user, and not accessible by others. .Pp Note that by default .Xr sshd 8 will be installed so that it requires successful RSA host authentication before permitting \s+2.\s0rhosts authentication. If the server machine does not have the client's host key in .Pa /etc/ssh_known_hosts , it can be stored in .Pa $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts . The easiest way to do this is to connect back to the client from the server machine using ssh; this will automatically add the host key to .Pa $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts . .It Pa $HOME/.shosts This file is used exactly the same way as .Pa \&.rhosts . The purpose for having this file is to be able to use rhosts authentication with .Nm without permitting login with .Xr rlogin 1 or .Xr rsh 1 . .It Pa /etc/hosts.equiv This file is used during .Pa \&.rhosts authentication. It contains canonical hosts names, one per line (the full format is described on the .Xr sshd 8 manual page). If the client host is found in this file, login is automatically permitted provided client and server user names are the same. Additionally, successful RSA host authentication is normally required. This file should only be writable by root. .It Pa /etc/shosts.equiv This file is processed exactly as .Pa /etc/hosts.equiv . This file may be useful to permit logins using .Nm but not using rsh/rlogin. .It Pa /etc/sshrc Commands in this file are executed by .Nm when the user logs in just before the user's shell (or command) is started. See the .Xr sshd 8 manual page for more information. .It Pa $HOME/.ssh/rc Commands in this file are executed by .Nm when the user logs in just before the user's shell (or command) is started. See the .Xr sshd 8 manual page for more information. .It Pa $HOME/.ssh/environment Contains additional definitions for environment variables, see section .Sx ENVIRONMENT above. .El .Sh AUTHORS OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by Tatu Ylonen. Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo de Raadt and Dug Song removed many bugs, re-added newer features and created OpenSSH. Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH protocol versions 1.5 and 2.0. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr rlogin 1 , .Xr rsh 1 , .Xr scp 1 , .Xr sftp 1 , .Xr ssh-add 1 , .Xr ssh-agent 1 , .Xr ssh-keygen 1 , .Xr telnet 1 , .Xr sshd 8 .Rs .%A T. Ylonen .%A T. Kivinen .%A M. Saarinen .%A T. Rinne .%A S. Lehtinen .%T "SSH Protocol Architecture" .%N draft-ietf-secsh-architecture-09.txt .%D July 2001 .%O work in progress material .Re