ssh setup without root access

[Chris Mosentine]

I posted this question as part of another thread, but I think it deserves it's own thread.

In configuring SIM access to my SUSE linux servers, I have had to open up ssh to allow root login via password, which I do not like to do, even on our network behind a good firewall.

I can see possibly enabling root access for the initial setup, but what I don't understand is why root access in needed thereafter as certificate-based authentication should be working. Below is my ssh_config file.

Can you point out what I may be doing wrong? Thanks, Chris.

# The strategy used for options in the default sshd_config shipped with
# OpenSSH is to specify options with their default value where
# possible, but leave them commented. Uncommented options change a
# default value.

Port 22
Protocol 2
#AddressFamily any
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
#ListenAddress ::

# HostKey for protocol version 1
#HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key
# HostKeys for protocol version 2
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
#HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key

# Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key
#KeyRegenerationInterval 1h
#ServerKeyBits 768

# Logging
# obsoletes QuietMode and FascistLogging
#SyslogFacility AUTH
#LogLevel INFO

# Authentication:

#LoginGraceTime 2m
PermitRootLogin yes
#StrictModes yes
#MaxAuthTries 6

RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys

# For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts
#RhostsRSAAuthentication yes
# similar for protocol version 2
HostbasedAuthentication yes
# Change to yes if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for
HostbasedAuthentication yes
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts no
# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
#IgnoreRhosts yes

# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
PasswordAuthentication yes
PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Change to no to disable s/key passwords
#ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes

# Kerberos options
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#KerberosTicketCleanup yes
#KerberosGetAFSToken no

# GSSAPI options
#GSSAPIAuthentication no
#GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes

# Set this to 'yes' to enable support for the deprecated 'gssapi' authentication
# mechanism to OpenSSH 3.8p1. The newer 'gssapi-with-mic' mechanism is included
# in this release. The use of 'gssapi' is deprecated due to the presence of
# potential man-in-the-middle attacks, which 'gssapi-with-mic' is not susceptible to.
#GSSAPIEnableMITMAttack no


# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing,
# and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will
# be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication mechanism.
# Depending on your PAM configuration, this may bypass the setting of
# PasswordAuthentication, PermitEmptyPasswords, and
# "PermitRootLogin without-password". If you just want the PAM account and
# session checks to run without PAM authentication, then enable this but set
# ChallengeResponseAuthentication=no
UsePAM yes

#AllowTcpForwarding yes
#GatewayPorts no
X11Forwarding yes
#X11DisplayOffset 10
#X11UseLocalhost yes
#PrintMotd yes
#PrintLastLog yes
#TCPKeepAlive yes
#UseLogin no
#UsePrivilegeSeparation yes
#PermitUserEnvironment no
#Compression delayed
#ClientAliveInterval 0
#ClientAliveCountMax 3
#UseDNS yes
#PidFile /var/run/sshd.pid
#MaxStartups 10

# no default banner path
#Banner /some/path

# override default of no subsystems
Subsystem sftp /usr/lib64/ssh/sftp-server

# This enables accepting locale enviroment variables LC_* LANG, see sshd_config(5).
AcceptEnv LANG LC_CTYPE LC_NUMERIC LC_TIME LC_COLLATE LC_MONETARY LC_MESSAGES
AcceptEnv LC_PAPER LC_NAME LC_ADDRESS LC_TELEPHONE LC_MEASUREMENT
AcceptEnv LC_IDENTIFICATION LC_ALL

[Chris Mosentine]

Replying to my own thread. I have somewhat mitigated root access by creating a sim-specific user to use as a login account on the linux servers. Now at least root access can be turned off.

BUT, this still required password-based authentication which I still want to disable.

Getting closer, Chris.