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Security configuration

The security module provides the ability to limit or force the behavior of SSH. It can be configured using the following structure:

security:
  maxSessions: 10
  forceCommand: "/run/this/command"
  defaultMode: enable|filter|disable
  env:
    mode: enable|filter|disable
    allow:
      - ENV_VARIABLE_NAME
    deny:
      - ENV_VARIABLE_NAME
  command:
    mode: enable|filter|disable
    allow:
      - /allow/this/command
  shell:
    mode: enable|disable
  subsystem:
    mode: enable|filter|disable
    allow:
      - <enable-this-subsystem>
    deny:
      - <disable-this-subsystem>
  tty:
    mode: enable|disable
  signal:
    mode: enable|filter|disable
    allow:
      - TERM
    deny:
      - KILL

Maximum sessions

The maxSessions option lets you limit the number of parallel sessions a client can open. When this number of sessions is reached further session requests are rejected until a session is closed. The recommended value for this option is 10.

Forcing commands

The forceCommand option lets you force the execution of a command even when the client has specified a different command to be run. This turns all shell and subsystem requests into command execution requests to run the specified command. The original command will be available in the SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND environment variable.

Filtering requests

SSH allows a client to request a multitude of things. The security module allows you to either enable, filter, or deny requests.

  • allow will allow all requests except the ones specified in the deny list.
  • filter will only allow requests specified in the allow list.
  • deny denies all requests.

You can configure the settings either individually, or using the defaultMode setting. It is strongly recommended to set a default mode so future ContainerSSH versions adding new features don't accidentally allow something you don't want to enable.

Environment variable filtering

Using the env option you can filter which environment variables the client can set. In enable mode you can deny specific environment variables by specifying disallowed variables in the deny list. In filter mode you can specify allowed variables in the allow list. If you want to completely disable setting environment variables you can set the mode to disable.

Command execution

A client can explicitly request running a specific command by specifying it in the command line:

ssh yourserver.com run-this-program

In enable mode command execution is enabled with no filtering. There is no deny option as it is trivially easy to work around a simple matching.

In filter mode only the commands that are specified in the allow list are executed. The match must be exact.

In deny mode all command execution is disabled.

Shell execution

When not specifying a command to the SSH client by default a shell is launched. You can only set the enable and disable modes. The filter mode is valid, but is equal to the disable mode.

Subsystem execution

SSH clients can also execute well-known subsystems, such as sftp. The server then decides which binary to execute for the requested subsystem.

When set to enable all subsystems except the ones in the deny list. In filter mode only subsystems in the allow list are allowed. In deny mode no subsystem execution is allowed.

TTY/PTY requests

When a client wants to use the SSH server interactively they can send a PTY request to the server before executing the program.

The only security options for TTY are enable and disable. filter mode is not explicitly invalid, but behaves like deny.

Signals

Although not used very often, SSH clients can request signals to be delivered to the running program. In enable mode all signals except for the ones listed in the deny list are allowed. In filter mode only the signals in the allow list are allowed. In disable mode no signal delivery is allowed.

Warning

Signal names have to be specified without the SIG prefix.

ContainerSSH supports the following signals:

  • ABRT
  • ALRM
  • FPE
  • HUP
  • ILL
  • INT
  • KILL
  • PIPE
  • QUIT
  • SEGV
  • TERM
  • USR1
  • USR2