Skip to Content
SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition
book

SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

by Daniel J. Barrett, Richard E. Silverman, Robert G. Byrnes
May 2005
Intermediate to advanced
666 pages
21h 5m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5. Serverwide Configuration

After installing an SSH server (sshd),[42] it’s time to make informed decisions about your server’s operation. Which authentication techniques should be permitted? How many bits should the server key contain? Should idle connections be dropped after a time limit or left connected indefinitely? These and other questions must be considered carefully. sshd has reasonable defaults, but don’t accept them blindly. Your server should conform to a carefully planned security policy. Fortunately, sshd is highly configurable, so you can make it do all kinds of interesting tricks.

This chapter covers serverwide configuration, in which a system administrator controls the global runtime behavior of the SSH server. This includes a large, rich set of features, such as TCP/IP settings, encryption, authentication, access control, and error logging. Some features are controlled by modifying a serverwide configuration file, and others by command-line options passed to the server at invocation.

Serverwide configuration is just one of three levels for controlling the behavior of SSH servers. The other two levels are compile-time configuration (Chapter 4), in which the server is compiled with or without certain functionality; and per-account configuration (Chapter 8), in which the server’s behavior is modified by end users for their accounts only. We’ll discuss the distinction between the three levels in more detail later. [5.2]

This chapter covers only the OpenSSH and ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Mastering Linux Security and Hardening - Second Edition

Mastering Linux Security and Hardening - Second Edition

Donald A. Tevault
Linux Fundamentals

Linux Fundamentals

Sander van Vugt

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596008953Errata Page