Firewall Wizards mailing list archives

RE: Issues opeing firewall for SSH/SecureFTP?


From: "R. DuFresne" <dufresne () sysinfo com>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 11:38:39 -0400 (EDT)



The May 2004 issue of sysadmin mag had an article on "secure file transfer
w/ chrooted sftp-only accounts", perhaps that might be useful?

Thanks,

Ron DuFresne

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004, David West wrote:

I've recently been looking at a similar request. 

Has anyone on the list looked at using a restricted
shell such as rssh or scponly to restrict scp or sftp
without a remote shell? 

rssh - http://www.pizzashack.org/rssh/
scponly - http://sublimation.org/scponly/

David


From: "Bill Royds" <broyds () rogers com>
To: <firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com>
Subject: RE: [fw-wiz] Issues opeing firewall for
SSH/SecureFTP?
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 15:44:39 -0400

 Whether VPN or SSH is appropriate really depends on
the situation. A contractor
needing access to a particular server on your
internal network would be better
served by a VPN directly to that server with a stack
that blocks splitting the
routing when the VPN is up (no access to internal
network when VPN is working).
They can look at the server fully including using
something like Terminal Server
to run installs and diagnostics. This VPN would be
through your firewall, not
terminated at your firewall.
  But if all they needed was a single purpose
access, such as file transfer then
SFTP over SSH generally is appropriate. But remember
that SSH is Secure SHELL.
It gives command line access to the remote machine,
which means a lot of control
over your server. Some clients and servers can
control it to only  allow SFTP,
but one has to set things up carefully to avoid
giving access to the system.

-----Original Message-----
From: firewall-wizards-admin () honor icsalabs com
[mailto:firewall-wizards-admin () honor icsalabs com]
On Behalf Of Chris Conacher
Sent: Monday, August 09, 2004 3:35 PM
To: firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com
Subject: [fw-wiz] Issues opeing firewall for
SSH/SecureFTP?

Dear List

I am currently trying to move an organization's
current solution of VPN for 
external contractors performing file transfer, to
SecureFTP.

My belief has always been that SecureFTP is the
appropriate solution for 
secure file transfer and the aim should always be to
avoid giving remote 
access to internal networks [especially
non-employee] where it is not 
specifically required.

My question is are there any other issues that I
should be aware of with 
allowing SecureFTP/SSH through the firewall as one
of the standard pushes 
(read knee jerk reactions) against this appears to
be that another port is 
opened on the firewall?

1. I have worked in a lot of different organizations
where VPN seems to be 
the norm for everyone even where the only
requirement is file transfer
2. My belief is that this is because the
organization does not appreciate 
the implications of allowing non-employees access to
the internal network 
and does not understand that SecureFTP is an
appropriate solution
3. I understand that SSH is a great opportunity for
tunneling attacks if an 
exploit is discovered, but I feel that there is it
possible to manage this 
exposure through the existence of a DMZ based
bastion host, rather than 
providing external people with access to the VPN.

Comments appreciated.

Chris


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