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

Chapter 8. Per-Account Server Configuration

We’ve seen two techniques for controlling the SSH server’s behavior globally: compile-time configuration (Chapter 4) and serverwide configuration (Chapter 5). These techniques affect all incoming SSH connections to a given server machine. Now it’s time to introduce a third, finer-grained method of server control: per-account configuration .

As the name implies, per-account configuration controls the SSH server differently for each user account on the server machine. For example, a user account sandy can accept incoming SSH connections from any machine on the Internet, while rick permits connections only from the domain verysafe.com, and fraidycat refuses key-based connections. Each user configures his own account, using the facilities highlighted in Figure 8-1, without needing special privileges or assistance from the system administrator.

We have already seen a simple type of per-account configuration. A user may place a public key into her authorization file, instructing the SSH server to permit logins to her account by public-key authentication. But per-account configuration can go further, becoming a powerful tool for access control and playing some fun tricks with your account. Accepting or rejecting connections by particular keys or hosts is just the beginning. For instance, you can make an incoming SSH connection run a program of your choice, instead of the client’s choice. This is called a forced command, and we’ll cover quite a ...