nanog mailing list archives

Re: Friday Reminder: Web Site Security


From: Matt Palmer <mpalmer () hezmatt org>
Date: Sat, 16 May 2020 13:10:37 +1000

On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 07:24:51PM -0400, Valdis Klētnieks wrote:
And yes, I know that automated systems can't use passphrases.. so remember to
check to see if you can use 'force-command=' in the known hosts file so that the
key can only issue one command.  (yes, this means that if the automation host has
to do a dozen different things, it needs a dozen keypairs.  Security is always tradeoffs.)

No need for trade-offs here; you can have a `command=` (it's not
`force-command=`) wrapper script that validates the command that was sent
(via `$SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND`) and does an `exec` if it's on the "approved"
list.  One key, many commands, any command you don't allow gets blocked.

- Matt


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