able to login as root via ssh :-(

[Don Russell]

Todd Zullinger wrote:
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> Don Russell wrote:
>   
>>> Why?  Just curious what made you believe it was disabled by default.
>>>  
>>>       
>> Well.... just ignorance on my part.... but ftp doesn't allow me log
>> in as root, and I don't recall changing that setting. Call it "I
>> expected any form of remote access to be consistent in denying root
>> access". Of course they are different programs (ftp server/ssh
>> server)... and I always see messages that say "... ssh in, then su -
>> to root...." sort of implies that ssh to root directly won't work.
>> But again, abad assumption on my part. :-(
>>     
>
> It's not unreasonable to assume the default would be to disable it.
> I'm sure there have been debates on what the right default should be
> among the openssh developers.  I didn't mean to pick on you by asking.
> ;-)
>   

No offense taken... I often ask "why did you think that" to people, not 
as a criticism, but to see what they were thinking. Some times people 
reach certain conclusions, but have really convoluted thinking/path to 
get there. In my case, (above) I simply made a bad assumption, and 
missed the (now) obvious correction.
>   
>> One of these days I will learn how to do a case-insensitive search in 
>> vim :-(
>> I did /root and of course it came up empty... so I figured there must 
>> have been some other place...
>>     
>
> Add 'set ignorecase' to ~/.vimrc to make it ignore case by default.
> You can also do this while in vim by entering that (or the shorthand
> set ic) in command mode (:).  To make case sensitive again, use set
> noic.
>   

Thanks for that.... I like case insensitive searches by default.... it's 
very rare that I match on exact case... and it's always easy to just 
"nope, find next".

> You can do something similar with less so that you'll get case
> insensitive searches in man pages, which I've found quite helpful.
> The --ignore-case (or -i) option is what you want.  You can either
> alias less to less -i or export LESS="-i" (adding any other options
> you want as well.
>   

That's a good idea too....

>>> You might also want to disable password based authentication and
>>> only allow a few explicit users.  See PasswordAuthentication and
>>> AllowUsers in the sshd_config(5) man page.
>>>       
>> That's a good idea.... I'm the only one that needs remote access....
>> and my logs are always showing people "knocking at the door"
>> sometimes hundreds a day.
>>     
>
> Yep, the same bastards knock on most of our doors too. :)
>
> Yet another helpful method for stopping a lot of that is to run ssh on
> a different port.
>   

I'm not a big fan of that ... I like to use standard ports for things... 
to me, changing port numbers is little more than leaving the door key 
under the flower pot instead of under the mat. :-) Granted, there are 
approx 65000 flowerpots to choose from. :-)

If a would-be hacker is put off so easily as a port number change, they 
are probably harmless anyway. :-)

>> Thanks... now, if only it wouldn't bother asking for a password when
>> the userid is 'root'.. like ftp simply denies the request right
>> there. But, at least that little door is closed now. :-)
>>     
>
> It does on my system.  I've set PasswordAuthentication no and
> AllowUsers myusername.  Trying to ssh in as root gets me a quick
> permission denied message.

I'll check that out.... thanks.