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Date:      Wed, 5 Dec 2001 11:57:29 -0700
From:      John Reynolds~ <jreynold@sedona.ch.intel.com>
To:        freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: naive security question
Message-ID:  <15374.28185.485112.113662@chlx169.ch.intel.com>
In-Reply-To: <20011205184000.GA21710@sploo.aagh.net>
References:  <20011205174654.93719.qmail@web21009.mail.yahoo.com> <20011205184000.GA21710@sploo.aagh.net>

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[ On Wednesday, December 5, Thomas Hurst wrote: ]
> 
> If you want to remove the password guessing bit, disable it and use
> RSA/DSA keys instead.  Also the general consensus would seem to be to
> stick to SSH2 if you're really that worried.

you can also go one step further and put more "constraints" on the keys in
your authorized_keys and authorized_keys2 files.

from sshd(8):

     from="pattern-list"
             Specifies that in addition to RSA authentication, the canonical
             name of the remote host must be present in the comma-separated
             list of patterns (`*' and `'?  serve as wildcards).  The list may
             also contain patterns negated by prefixing them with `'!; if the
             canonical host name matches a negated pattern, the key is not
             accepted.  The purpose of this option is to optionally increase
             security: RSA authentication by itself does not trust the network
             or name servers or anything (but the key); however, if somebody
             somehow steals the key, the key permits an intruder to log in
             from anywhere in the world.  This additional option makes using a
             stolen key more difficult (name servers and/or routers would have
             to be compromised in addition to just the key).

So you can specify which machines you can SSH from (if you can narrow down
the set of "authorized hosts" from which you can ssh into your box from).

A sample of my file:

from="somehost.foo.bar.com" 1024 35 16503156<rest of big freaking number>

So, now even if somebody stole that key and could use it to try and
authenticate with it, unless they can also present themselves as
somehost.foo.bar.com, it won't work.

Anyway, 'only the paranoid survive' :)

-Jr

-- 
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| John Reynolds               WCCG, CCE, CDS - Senior CAD Engineer          |
| Intel Corporation   MS: CH6-210   Phone: 480-554-9092   pgr: 602-868-6512 |
| jreynold@sedona.ch.intel.com  http://www-aec.ch.intel.com/~jreynold/      |
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