3 .\" Author: Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>
4 .\" Copyright (c) 1995 Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>, Espoo, Finland
5 .\" All rights reserved
7 .\" As far as I am concerned, the code I have written for this software
8 .\" can be used freely for any purpose. Any derived versions of this
9 .\" software must be clearly marked as such, and if the derived work is
10 .\" incompatible with the protocol description in the RFC file, it must be
11 .\" called by a name other than "ssh" or "Secure Shell".
13 .\" Copyright (c) 1999,2000 Markus Friedl. All rights reserved.
14 .\" Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron Campbell. All rights reserved.
15 .\" Copyright (c) 1999 Theo de Raadt. All rights reserved.
17 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
18 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
20 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
21 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
22 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
23 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
24 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
26 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR
27 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
28 .\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
29 .\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
30 .\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
31 .\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
32 .\" DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
33 .\" THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
34 .\" (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
35 .\" THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
37 .\" $OpenBSD: sshd_config.5,v 1.15 2003/03/28 10:11:43 jmc Exp $
38 .Dd September 25, 1999
43 .Nd OpenSSH SSH daemon configuration file
45 .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
46 .It Pa /etc/ssh/sshd_config
50 reads configuration data from
51 .Pa /etc/ssh/sshd_config
52 (or the file specified with
55 The file contains keyword-argument pairs, one per line.
58 and empty lines are interpreted as comments.
61 keywords and their meanings are as follows (note that
62 keywords are case-insensitive and arguments are case-sensitive):
64 .It Cm AFSTokenPassing
65 Specifies whether an AFS token may be forwarded to the server.
69 This keyword can be followed by a list of group name patterns, separated
71 If specified, login is allowed only for users whose primary
72 group or supplementary group list matches one of the patterns.
77 wildcards in the patterns.
78 Only group names are valid; a numerical group ID is not recognized.
79 By default, login is allowed for all groups.
81 .It Cm AllowTcpForwarding
82 Specifies whether TCP forwarding is permitted.
85 Note that disabling TCP forwarding does not improve security unless
86 users are also denied shell access, as they can always install their
90 This keyword can be followed by a list of user name patterns, separated
92 If specified, login is allowed only for user names that
93 match one of the patterns.
98 wildcards in the patterns.
99 Only user names are valid; a numerical user ID is not recognized.
100 By default, login is allowed for all users.
101 If the pattern takes the form USER@HOST then USER and HOST
102 are separately checked, restricting logins to particular
103 users from particular hosts.
105 .It Cm AuthorizedKeysFile
106 Specifies the file that contains the public keys that can be used
107 for user authentication.
108 .Cm AuthorizedKeysFile
109 may contain tokens of the form %T which are substituted during connection
110 set-up. The following tokens are defined: %% is replaced by a literal '%',
111 %h is replaced by the home directory of the user being authenticated and
112 %u is replaced by the username of that user.
114 .Cm AuthorizedKeysFile
115 is taken to be an absolute path or one relative to the user's home
118 .Dq .ssh/authorized_keys .
120 In some jurisdictions, sending a warning message before authentication
121 may be relevant for getting legal protection.
122 The contents of the specified file are sent to the remote user before
123 authentication is allowed.
124 This option is only available for protocol version 2.
125 By default, no banner is displayed.
127 .It Cm ChallengeResponseAuthentication
128 Specifies whether challenge response authentication is allowed.
129 All authentication styles from
135 Specifies the ciphers allowed for protocol version 2.
136 Multiple ciphers must be comma-separated.
140 ``aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,
141 aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc''
143 .It Cm ClientAliveInterval
144 Sets a timeout interval in seconds after which if no data has been received
147 will send a message through the encrypted
148 channel to request a response from the client.
150 is 0, indicating that these messages will not be sent to the client.
151 This option applies to protocol version 2 only.
152 .It Cm ClientAliveCountMax
153 Sets the number of client alive messages (see above) which may be
156 receiving any messages back from the client. If this threshold is
157 reached while client alive messages are being sent,
159 will disconnect the client, terminating the session. It is important
160 to note that the use of client alive messages is very different from
162 (below). The client alive messages are sent through the
163 encrypted channel and therefore will not be spoofable. The TCP keepalive
166 is spoofable. The client alive mechanism is valuable when the client or
167 server depend on knowing when a connection has become inactive.
169 The default value is 3. If
170 .Cm ClientAliveInterval
171 (above) is set to 15, and
172 .Cm ClientAliveCountMax
173 is left at the default, unresponsive ssh clients
174 will be disconnected after approximately 45 seconds.
176 Specifies whether compression is allowed.
184 This keyword can be followed by a list of group name patterns, separated
186 Login is disallowed for users whose primary group or supplementary
187 group list matches one of the patterns.
192 wildcards in the patterns.
193 Only group names are valid; a numerical group ID is not recognized.
194 By default, login is allowed for all groups.
197 This keyword can be followed by a list of user name patterns, separated
199 Login is disallowed for user names that match one of the patterns.
203 can be used as wildcards in the patterns.
204 Only user names are valid; a numerical user ID is not recognized.
205 By default, login is allowed for all users.
206 If the pattern takes the form USER@HOST then USER and HOST
207 are separately checked, restricting logins to particular
208 users from particular hosts.
210 Specifies whether remote hosts are allowed to connect to ports
211 forwarded for the client.
214 binds remote port forwardings to the loopback address.
215 This prevents other remote hosts from connecting to forwarded ports.
217 can be used to specify that
219 should bind remote port forwardings to the wildcard address,
220 thus allowing remote hosts to connect to forwarded ports.
227 .It Cm HostbasedAuthentication
228 Specifies whether rhosts or /etc/hosts.equiv authentication together
229 with successful public key client host authentication is allowed
230 (hostbased authentication).
231 This option is similar to
232 .Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication
233 and applies to protocol version 2 only.
236 .It Cm GssapiAuthentication
237 Specifies whether authentication based on GSSAPI may be used, either using
238 the result of a successful key exchange, or using GSSAPI user
242 .It Cm GssapiKeyExchange
243 Specifies whether key exchange based on GSSAPI may be used. When using
244 GSSAPI key exchange the server need not have a host key.
247 .It Cm GssapiUseSessionCredCache
248 Specifies whether a unique credentials cache name should be generated per
249 session for storing delegated credentials.
252 .It Cm GssapiCleanupCreds
253 Specifies whether the credentials cache should be removed at the end
258 Specifies a file containing a private host key
261 .Pa /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key
262 for protocol version 1, and
263 .Pa /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
265 .Pa /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
266 for protocol version 2.
269 will refuse to use a file if it is group/world-accessible.
270 It is possible to have multiple host key files.
272 keys are used for version 1 and
276 are used for version 2 of the SSH protocol.
282 files will not be used in
283 .Cm RhostsAuthentication ,
284 .Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication
286 .Cm HostbasedAuthentication .
290 .Pa /etc/shosts.equiv
294 .It Cm IgnoreUserKnownHosts
297 should ignore the user's
298 .Pa $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts
300 .Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication
302 .Cm HostbasedAuthentication .
306 Specifies whether the system should send TCP keepalive messages to the
308 If they are sent, death of the connection or crash of one
309 of the machines will be properly noticed.
310 However, this means that
311 connections will die if the route is down temporarily, and some people
313 On the other hand, if keepalives are not sent,
314 sessions may hang indefinitely on the server, leaving
316 users and consuming server resources.
320 (to send keepalives), and the server will notice
321 if the network goes down or the client host crashes.
322 This avoids infinitely hanging sessions.
324 To disable keepalives, the value should be set to
326 .It Cm KerberosAuthentication
327 Specifies whether Kerberos authentication is allowed.
328 This can be in the form of a Kerberos ticket, or if
329 .Cm PasswordAuthentication
330 is yes, the password provided by the user will be validated through
332 To use this option, the server needs a
333 Kerberos servtab which allows the verification of the KDC's identity.
336 .It Cm KerberosOrLocalPasswd
337 If set then if password authentication through Kerberos fails then
338 the password will be validated via any additional local mechanism
343 .It Cm KerberosTgtPassing
344 Specifies whether a Kerberos TGT may be forwarded to the server.
347 as this only works when the Kerberos KDC is actually an AFS kaserver.
348 .It Cm KerberosTicketCleanup
349 Specifies whether to automatically destroy the user's ticket cache
353 .It Cm KeyRegenerationInterval
354 In protocol version 1, the ephemeral server key is automatically regenerated
355 after this many seconds (if it has been used).
356 The purpose of regeneration is to prevent
357 decrypting captured sessions by later breaking into the machine and
359 The key is never stored anywhere.
360 If the value is 0, the key is never regenerated.
361 The default is 3600 (seconds).
363 Specifies the local addresses
366 The following forms may be used:
368 .Bl -item -offset indent -compact
372 .Ar host No | Ar IPv4_addr No | Ar IPv6_addr
377 .Ar host No | Ar IPv4_addr No : Ar port
383 .Ar host No | Ar IPv6_addr Oc : Ar port
391 will listen on the address and all prior
393 options specified. The default is to listen on all local
397 options are permitted. Additionally, any
399 options must precede this option for non port qualified addresses.
400 .It Cm LoginGraceTime
401 The server disconnects after this time if the user has not
402 successfully logged in.
403 If the value is 0, there is no time limit.
404 The default is 120 seconds.
406 Gives the verbosity level that is used when logging messages from
408 The possible values are:
409 QUIET, FATAL, ERROR, INFO, VERBOSE, DEBUG, DEBUG1, DEBUG2 and DEBUG3.
411 DEBUG and DEBUG1 are equivalent.
412 DEBUG2 and DEBUG3 each specify higher levels of debugging output.
413 Logging with a DEBUG level violates the privacy of users and is not recommended.
415 Specifies the available MAC (message authentication code) algorithms.
416 The MAC algorithm is used in protocol version 2
417 for data integrity protection.
418 Multiple algorithms must be comma-separated.
420 .Dq hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,hmac-ripemd160,hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 .
422 Specifies the maximum number of concurrent unauthenticated connections to the
425 Additional connections will be dropped until authentication succeeds or the
427 expires for a connection.
430 Alternatively, random early drop can be enabled by specifying
431 the three colon separated values
435 will refuse connection attempts with a probability of
438 if there are currently
441 unauthenticated connections.
442 The probability increases linearly and all connection attempts
443 are refused if the number of unauthenticated connections reaches
446 .It Cm PAMAuthenticationViaKbdInt
447 Specifies whether PAM challenge response authentication is allowed. This
448 allows the use of most PAM challenge response authentication modules, but
449 it will allow password authentication regardless of whether
450 .Cm PasswordAuthentication
452 .It Cm PasswordAuthentication
453 Specifies whether password authentication is allowed.
456 .It Cm PermitEmptyPasswords
457 When password authentication is allowed, it specifies whether the
458 server allows login to accounts with empty password strings.
461 .It Cm PermitRootLogin
462 Specifies whether root can login using
466 .Dq without-password ,
467 .Dq forced-commands-only
473 If this option is set to
475 password authentication is disabled for root.
477 If this option is set to
478 .Dq forced-commands-only
479 root login with public key authentication will be allowed,
482 option has been specified
483 (which may be useful for taking remote backups even if root login is
484 normally not allowed). All other authentication methods are disabled
487 If this option is set to
489 root is not allowed to login.
490 .It Cm PermitUserEnvironment
492 .Pa ~/.ssh/environment
496 .Pa ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
501 Enabling environment processing may enable users to bypass access
502 restrictions in some configurations using mechanisms such as
505 Specifies the file that contains the process ID of the
509 .Pa /var/run/sshd.pid .
511 Specifies the port number that
515 Multiple options of this type are permitted.
521 should print the date and time when the user last logged in.
529 when a user logs in interactively.
530 (On some systems it is also printed by the shell,
536 Specifies the protocol versions
539 The possible values are
543 Multiple versions must be comma-separated.
546 Note that the order of the protocol list does not indicate preference,
547 because the client selects among multiple protocol versions offered
553 .It Cm PubkeyAuthentication
554 Specifies whether public key authentication is allowed.
557 Note that this option applies to protocol version 2 only.
558 .It Cm RhostsAuthentication
559 Specifies whether authentication using rhosts or /etc/hosts.equiv
561 Normally, this method should not be permitted because it is insecure.
562 .Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication
564 instead, because it performs RSA-based host authentication in addition
565 to normal rhosts or /etc/hosts.equiv authentication.
568 This option applies to protocol version 1 only.
569 .It Cm RhostsRSAAuthentication
570 Specifies whether rhosts or /etc/hosts.equiv authentication together
571 with successful RSA host authentication is allowed.
574 This option applies to protocol version 1 only.
575 .It Cm RSAAuthentication
576 Specifies whether pure RSA authentication is allowed.
579 This option applies to protocol version 1 only.
581 Defines the number of bits in the ephemeral protocol version 1 server key.
582 The minimum value is 512, and the default is 768.
586 should check file modes and ownership of the
587 user's files and home directory before accepting login.
588 This is normally desirable because novices sometimes accidentally leave their
589 directory or files world-writable.
593 Configures an external subsystem (e.g., file transfer daemon).
594 Arguments should be a subsystem name and a command to execute upon subsystem
600 file transfer subsystem.
601 By default no subsystems are defined.
602 Note that this option applies to protocol version 2 only.
603 .It Cm SyslogFacility
604 Gives the facility code that is used when logging messages from
606 The possible values are: DAEMON, USER, AUTH, LOCAL0, LOCAL1, LOCAL2,
607 LOCAL3, LOCAL4, LOCAL5, LOCAL6, LOCAL7.
612 is used for interactive login sessions.
617 is never used for remote command execution.
618 Note also, that if this is enabled,
620 will be disabled because
622 does not know how to handle
626 .Cm UsePrivilegeSeparation
627 is specified, it will be disabled after authentication.
628 .It Cm UsePrivilegeSeparation
631 separates privileges by creating an unprivileged child process
632 to deal with incoming network traffic.
633 After successful authentication, another process will be created that has
634 the privilege of the authenticated user.
635 The goal of privilege separation is to prevent privilege
636 escalation by containing any corruption within the unprivileged processes.
639 .It Cm VerifyReverseMapping
642 should try to verify the remote host name and check that
643 the resolved host name for the remote IP address maps back to the
644 very same IP address.
647 .It Cm X11DisplayOffset
648 Specifies the first display number available for
653 from interfering with real X11 servers.
656 Specifies whether X11 forwarding is permitted.
664 When X11 forwarding is enabled, there may be additional exposure to
665 the server and to client displays if the
667 proxy display is configured to listen on the wildcard address (see
669 below), however this is not the default.
670 Additionally, the authentication spoofing and authentication data
671 verification and substitution occur on the client side.
672 The security risk of using X11 forwarding is that the client's X11
673 display server may be exposed to attack when the ssh client requests
674 forwarding (see the warnings for
678 A system administrator may have a stance in which they want to
679 protect clients that may expose themselves to attack by unwittingly
680 requesting X11 forwarding, which can warrant a
684 Note that disabling X11 forwarding does not prevent users from
685 forwarding X11 traffic, as users can always install their own forwarders.
686 X11 forwarding is automatically disabled if
689 .It Cm X11UseLocalhost
692 should bind the X11 forwarding server to the loopback address or to
693 the wildcard address.
696 binds the forwarding server to the loopback address and sets the
699 environment variable to
701 This prevents remote hosts from connecting to the proxy display.
702 However, some older X11 clients may not function with this
707 to specify that the forwarding server should be bound to the wildcard
716 Specifies the full pathname of the
720 .Pa /usr/X11R6/bin/xauth .
725 command-line arguments and configuration file options that specify time
726 may be expressed using a sequence of the form:
728 .Ar time Op Ar qualifier ,
732 is a positive integer value and
734 is one of the following:
736 .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact -offset indent
751 Each member of the sequence is added together to calculate
752 the total time value.
754 Time format examples:
756 .Bl -tag -width Ds -compact -offset indent
758 600 seconds (10 minutes)
762 1 hour 30 minutes (90 minutes)
766 .It Pa /etc/ssh/sshd_config
767 Contains configuration data for
769 This file should be writable by root only, but it is recommended
770 (though not necessary) that it be world-readable.
773 OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free
774 ssh 1.2.12 release by Tatu Ylonen.
775 Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos,
776 Theo de Raadt and Dug Song
777 removed many bugs, re-added newer features and
779 Markus Friedl contributed the support for SSH
780 protocol versions 1.5 and 2.0.
781 Niels Provos and Markus Friedl contributed support
782 for privilege separation.