Installing and configuring OpenSSH

OpenSSH comes in two pieces, the client application and the server application. It's likely that the client application is installed by default in your distribution. The client allows you to connect to other nodes via SSH, but having the client alone doesn't allow others to connect to you. If you want to access a machine via SSH, that machine must also have the SSH server application installed. Your chosen distribution may have the server application installed by default, but most don't. This is due to security—unless you absolutely need to have an application running and listening for connections, it should be absent. The fewer applications, the smaller the attack surface someone could use against you.

In Debian, ...

Get Mastering Linux Network Administration now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.