Ssh (1) obtains configuration data from the following sources in the fol- lowing order: 1. Command-line options 2. User's configuration file (/.ssh/config) 3. System-wide configuration file (/opt/local/etc/ssh/sshconfig) For each parameter, the first obtained value will be used. System-wide configuration file (/etc/ssh/sshconfig) For each parameter, the first obtained value will be used. The configuration files contain sections separated by Host specifications, and that section is only applied for hosts that match one of the patterns given in the specification.

• The first version of sshconfig, above, is the host view of defaults for ssh (1). The second version is user-specific defaults for ssh. Ssh obtains configuration data from the following sources (in this order): command line options, user’s configuration file ($HOME/.ssh/config), and system-wide configuration file (/etc/ssh/sshconfig).
• Ssh(SSH client) is a program for logging into a remote machine and for executing commands on a remote machine. It is intended to provide secure encrypted communications between two untrusted hosts over an insecure network. X11 connections, arbitrary TCP ports.
• The SSH Config File Structure and Interpretation Algorithm Each user on your local system can maintain a client-side SSH configuration file. These can contain any options that you would use on the command line to specify connection parameters, allowing you to store your common connection items and process them automatically on connection.

OpenSSH SSH client (remote login program)

ssh (SSH client) is a program for logging into a remote machine and for executing commands on a remote machine. It is intended to replace rlogin and rsh, and provide secure encrypted communications between two untrusted hosts over an insecure network. X11 connections and arbitrary TCP ports can also be forwarded over the secure channel.

ssh connects and logs into the specified hostname (with optional user name). The user must prove his/her identity to the remote machine using one of several methods depending on the protocol version used (see below).

If command is specified, it is executed on the remote host instead of a login shell.

AUTHENTICATION

The OpenSSH SSH client supports SSH protocols 1 and 2. Protocol 2 is the default, with ssh falling back to protocol 1 if it detects protocol 2 is unsupported. These settings can be altered using the Protocol option in ssh_config(5), or enforced using the -1 and -2 options (see above). Both protocols support similar authentication methods, but protocol 2 is preferred since it provides additional mechanisms for confidentiality (the traffic is encrypted using AES, 3DES, Blowfish, CAST128, or Arcfour) and integrity (hmac-md5, hmac-sha1, umac-64, hmac-ripemd160). Protocol 1 lacks a strong mechanism for ensuring the integrity of the connection.
The methods available for authentication are: GSSAPI-based authentication, host-based authentication, public key authentication,
challenge-response authentication, and password authentication. Authentication methods are tried in the order specified above, though protocol 2 has a configuration option to change the default order: PreferredAuthentications.
Host-based authentication works as follows: If the machine the user logs in from is listed in /etc/hosts.equiv or /etc/ssh/shosts.equiv on the remote machine, and the user names are the same on both sides, or if the files ~/.rhosts or ~/.shosts exist in the user’s home directory on the remote machine and contain a line containing the name of the client machine and the name of the user on that machine, the user is considered for login. Additionally, the server must be able to verify the client’s host key (see the description of /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts and~/.ssh/known_hosts, below) for login to be permitted. This authentication method closes security holes due to IP spoofing, DNS spoofing, and routing spoofing. [Note to the administrator: /etc/hosts.equiv, ~/.rhosts, and the rlogin/rsh protocol in general, are inherently insecure and should be disabled if security is desired.]
Public key authentication works as follows: The scheme is based on public-key cryptography, using cryptosystems where encryption and decryption are done using separate keys, and it is unfeasible to derive the decryption key from the encryption key. The idea is that each user creates a public/private key pair for authentication purposes. The server knows the public key, and only the user knows the private key.

ssh implements public key authentication protocol automatically, using either the RSA or DSA algorithms. Protocol 1 is restricted to using only RSA keys, but protocol 2 can use either. The HISTORY section of ssl(8) (on non-OpenBSD systems, see)
contains a brief discussion of the two algorithms.
The file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys lists the public keys that are permitted for logging in. When the user logs in, the ssh program tells the server which key pair it would like to use for authentication. The client proves that it has access to the private key and the server checks that the corresponding public key is authorized to accept the account.
The user creates his/her key pair by running ssh-keygen(1). This stores the private key in ~/.ssh/identity (protocol 1), ~/.ssh/id_dsa (protocol 2 DSA), or ~/.ssh/id_rsa (protocol 2 RSA) and stores the public key in ~/.ssh/identity.pub (protocol 1), ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub (protocol 2 DSA), or ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub (protocol 2 RSA) in the user’s home directory. The user should then copy the public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys in his/her home directory on the remote machine. The authorized_keys file corresponds to the conventional ~/.rhosts file, and has one key per line, though the lines can be very long. After this, the user can log in without giving the password.
The most convenient way to use public key authentication can be with an authentication agent. See ssh-agent(1) for more information.
Challenge-response authentication works as follows: The server sends an arbitrary 'challenge' text, and prompts for a response. Protocol 2 allows multiple challenges and responses; protocol 1 is restricted to just one challenge/response. Examples of challenge-response authentication include BSD Authentication (see login.conf(5)) and PAM (some non-OpenBSD systems).
Finally, if other authentication methods fail, ssh prompts the user for a password. The password is sent to the remote host for checking; however, since all communications are encrypted, the password cannot be seen by someone listening on the network.
ssh automatically maintains and checks a database containing identification for all hosts it has ever been used with. Host keys are
stored in ~/.ssh/known_hosts in the user’s home directory. Additionally, the file /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts is automatically checked for known hosts. Any new hosts are automatically added to the user’s file. If a host’s identification ever changes, ssh warns about this and disables password authentication to prevent server spoofing or man-in-the-middle attacks, which could otherwise be used to circumvent the encryption. The StrictHostKeyChecking option can be used to control logins to machines whose host key is not known or has changed.
When the user’s identity has been accepted by the server, the server either executes the given command, or logs into the machine and gives the user a normal shell on the remote machine. All communication with the remote command or shell will be automatically encrypted.
If a pseudo-terminal has been allocated (normal login session), the user may use the escape characters noted below.
If no pseudo-tty has been allocated, the session is transparent and can be used to reliably transfer binary data. On most systems, setting the escape character to “none” will also make the session transparent even if a tty is used.
The session terminates when the command or shell on the remote machine exits and all X11 and TCP connections have been closed.

ESCAPE CHARACTERS

Ssh Client Config

When a pseudo-terminal has been requested, ssh supports a number of functions through the use of an escape character.
A single tilde character can be sent as ~~ or by following the tilde by a character other than those described below. The escape character must always follow a newline to be interpreted as special. The escape character can be changed in configuration files using the EscapeChar configuration directive or on the command line by the -e option.
The supported escapes (assuming the default ‘~’) are:

TCP FORWARDING

Forwarding of arbitrary TCP connections over the secure channel can be specified either on the command line or in a configuration file. One possible application of TCP forwarding is a secure connection to a mail server; another is going through firewalls.
In the example below, we look at encrypting communication between an IRC client and server, even though the IRC server does not directly support encrypted communications. This works as follows: the user connects to
the remote host using ssh, specifying a port to be used to forward connections to the remote server. After that it is possible to start the service which is to be encrypted on the client machine, connecting to the same local port, and ssh will encrypt and forward the connection.
The following example tunnels an IRC session from client machine “127.0.0.1” (localhost) to remote server “server.example.com”:

This tunnels a connection to IRC server “server.example.com”, joining channel “#users”, nickname “pinky”, using port 1234. It doesn’t matter which port is used, as long as it’s greater than 1023 (remember, only root can open sockets on privileged ports) and doesn’t conflict with any ports already in use. The connection is forwarded to port 6667 on the remote server, since that’s the standard port for IRC services.
The -f option backgrounds ssh and the remote command “sleep 10” is specified to allow an amount of time (10 seconds, in the example) to start the service which is to be tunnelled. If no connections are made within the time specified, ssh will exit.

X11 FORWARDING

If the ForwardX11 variable is set to “yes” (or see the description of the -X, -x, and -Y options above) and the user is using X11 (the DISPLAY environment variable is set), the connection to the X11 display is automatically forwarded to the remote side in such a way that any X11 programs started from the shell (or command) will go through the encrypted channel, and the connection to the real X server will be made from the local machine. The user should not manually set DISPLAY.
Forwarding of X11 connections can be configured on the command line or in configuration files.
The DISPLAY value set by ssh will point to the server machine, but with a display number greater than zero. This is normal, and happens because ssh creates a “proxy” X server on the server machine for forwarding the connections over the encrypted channel.
ssh will also automatically set up Xauthority data on the server machine. For this purpose, it will generate a random authorization cookie, store it in Xauthority on the server, and verify that any forwarded connections carry this cookie and replace it by the real cookie when the connection is opened. The real authentication cookie is never sent to the server machine (and no cookies are sent in the plain).
If the ForwardAgent variable is set to “yes” (or see the description of the -A and -a options above) and the user is using an authentication agent, the connection to the agent is automatically forwarded to the remote side.

VERIFYING HOST KEYS

When connecting to a server for the first time, a fingerprint of the server’s public key is presented to the user (unless the option StrictHostKeyChecking has been disabled). Fingerprints can be determined using ssh-keygen(1):

If the fingerprint is already known, it can be matched and the key can be accepted or rejected. Because of the difficulty of comparing host keys just by looking at hex strings, there is also support to compare host keys visually, using randomart. By setting the VisualHostKey option to “yes”, a small ASCII graphic gets displayed on every login to a server, no matter if the session itself is interactive or not. By learning the pattern a known server produces, a user can easily find out that the host key has changed when a completely different pattern is displayed. Because these patterns are not unambiguous however, a pattern that looks similar to the pattern remembered only gives a good probability that the host key is the same, not guaranteed proof.
To get a listing of the fingerprints along with their random art for all known hosts, the following command line can be used:

If the fingerprint is unknown, an alternative method of verification is available: SSH fingerprints verified by DNS. An additional resource record (RR), SSHFP, is added to a zonefile and the connecting client is able to match the fingerprint with that of the key presented.
In this example, we are connecting a client to a server, “host.example.com”. The SSHFP resource records should first be added to
the zonefile for host.example.com:

The output lines will have to be added to the zonefile. To check that the zone is answering fingerprint queries:

Finally the client connects:

SSH-BASED VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORKS

ssh contains support for Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnelling using the tun(4) network pseudo-device, allowing two networks to be joined securely. The sshd_config(5) configuration option PermitTunnel controls whether the server supports this, and at what level (layer 2 or 3 traffic).
The following example would connect client network 10.0.50.0/24 with remote network 10.0.99.0/24 using a point-to-point connection from 10.1.1.1 to 10.1.1.2, provided that the SSH server running on the gateway to the remote network, at 192.168.1.15, allows it.

Client access can be more finely tuned via the /root/.ssh/authorized_keys file (see below) and the PermitRootLogin server option. The following entry would permit connections on tun(4) device 1 from user “jane” and on tun device 2 from user “john”, if PermitRootLogin is set to “forced-commands-only”:

Since an SSH-based setup entails a fair amount of overhead, it can be more suited to temporary setups, such as for wireless VPNs. More permanent VPNs are better provided by tools such as ipsecctl(8) and isakmpd(8).

ENVIRONMENT

Man Ssh Config Proxyjump

FILES

ssh is part of the the OpenSSH suite.

“Talent is hitting a target no-one else can hit, genius is hitting a target no-one else can see” - Schopenhauer

Related linux commands:

Man Ssh Config Proxycommand

scp(1), sftp(1), ssh-add(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-argv0(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh-keyscan(1), ssh-vulnkey(1), tun(4), hosts.equiv(5), ssh_config(5), ssh-keysign(8), sshd(8)
GNU Parallel - Execute jobs in parallel using one or more computers (examples).

Ssh Config Man Page