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Date:      Sat, 21 Jul 2018 07:03:38 -0400
From:      Chad Jacob Milios <freebsd-list@nuos.org>
To:        freebsd-security@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Possible break-in attempt?
Message-ID:  <2E502F45-E6F6-44D7-AE9E-9B8B08C1CEBE@nuos.org>
In-Reply-To: <201807201905.w6KJ59hn079229@donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net>
References:  <594ba84b-0691-8471-4bd4-076d0ae3da98@gjunka.com> <368EABCF-A10A-49E9-9473-7753F6BEAA50@patpro.net> <fd0ab13d-0dda-fa5d-a867-533720d9f47f@gjunka.com> <8EDDBDB2-77F5-4CF5-8744-41BEA187C08A@FreeBSD.org> <201807201905.w6KJ59hn079229@donotpassgo.dyslexicfish.net>

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> On Jul 20, 2018, at 3:05 PM, Jamie Landeg-Jones <jamie@catflap.org> =
wrote:
>=20
> Dimitry Andric <dim@freebsd.org> wrote:
>=20
>> For each incoming IP address, sshd does a reverse lookup, and if that
>> results in a hostname, it does another lookup of that hostname, to =
see
>> if *that* result matches the original incoming IP address.  If it =
does
>> not, you get this scary warning in syslog about a "possible break-in
>> attempt!".
>>=20
>> In my opinion, this is fairly misleading, since almost always the =
actual
>> cause is badly configured DNS, a very common occurrence.  In =
addition,
>> matching forward and reverse DNS records is no guarantee at all that =
the
>> incoming IP address is in any way trustworthy.
>=20
> I'm not sure which version this made it into, but they actually =
removed this
> over 2 years ago. It's not in the openssh that ships with FreeBSD =
11.2:
>=20
> | commit e690fe85750e93fca1fb7c7c8587d4130a4f7aba
> | Author: dtucker@openbsd.org <dtucker@openbsd.org>
> | Date:   Wed Jun 15 00:40:40 2016 +0000
> |
> |     upstream commit
> |
> |     Remove "POSSIBLE BREAK-IN ATTEMPT!" from log message
> |     about forward and reverse DNS not matching.  We haven't =
supported IP-based
> |     auth methods for a very long time so it's now misleading.  part =
of bz#2585,
> |     ok markus@
> |
> |     Upstream-ID: 5565ef0ee0599b27f0bd1d3bb1f8a323d8274e29
>=20
> cheers, Jamie

adding:

UseDNS no

has the added benefit of avoiding a grueling delay when YOU are the one =
behind an IP address with a misconfigured reverse DNS mapping (which is =
horribly common on consumer networks). It goes into /etc/ssh/sshd_config =
and has been among my initial configuration to every FreeBSD box i=E2=80=99=
ve stood up for a decade.

openssh-portable (in ports, produced by the paranoid fellows at OpenBSD) =
has actually switched to adopt this, UseDNS no, as their default =
configuration for, i think its been a couple years now. This is in =
addition to dropping the message from their log output if UseDNS yes.

There is no point to this foolishly alarming message. Be mindful of the =
OTHER ways you must surely have in place to keep your sshd hard against =
attack.

-CJ=



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