Warning banner from /etc/issue is not displaying via SSH.

[iPranay]

Dears 

I'm not able to view the contents of /etc/issue file. When login via SSH.

I’ve edited the /etc/inetd.conf as

telnet       stream tcp6 nowait root /usr/lbin/telnetd  telnetd -b /etc/issue

login        stream tcp6 nowait root /usr/lbin/rlogind  rlogind -B /etc/issue

#inetd -c

#restarted the SSH demon

But Banner is not displaying before I login… Please help…

Regards,

Pranay

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

The sshd daemon does not read /etc/inetd.conf at all. The settings you've added will affect incoming logins using the telnet and rlogin protocols only. Local console logins will also display /etc/issue if it exists.

You should add this line to the sshd configuration file (usually /opt/ssh/etc/sshd_config):

Banner /etc/issue

 Then restart the sshd daemon.

Note: only SSH protocol version 2 can display pre-login banners. Since SSH protocol version 1 is old and has known weaknesses, you should only allow SSH protocol version 2 anyway. So make sure that your sshd configuration file also has this line:

Protocol 2

If the Protocol line says "Protocol 2,1" or "Protocol 1,2", change it to "Protocol 2" only.

[iPranay]

Thank you MK... :)


Now it is working when i changed the Protocol 2 only :) :)

Regards,
Pranay

[iPranay]

Dear MK,

In few servers i'm not able to get the warning banner after doing the configuration. What could be the reason?

regards,

Pranay

[Matti_Kurkela]

Did you restart sshd after changing the configuration?

My suggestions assumed that you're using a reasonably modern version of the free HP SSH package. If your server is running a commercial SSH package, its configuration file might be elsewhere and might use a different syntax.

A very old version of sshd might not support the necessary configuration keywords. In that case, there should be a message in the syslog about sshd detecting an unknown keyword in the configuration.

If there is a SSH proxy between you and the actual host (e.g. for logging purposes, or someone is being malicious), then it might be filtering what you actually see.