How to set up ssh-only user with minimal privileges?

[Petter Adsen]

On Thu, 2 Apr 2015 15:59:01 +0000 (UTC)
Dan Purgert <dan at djph.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 02 Apr 2015 16:22:59 +0200, Petter Adsen wrote:
> 
> > I have a short script running from cron on a server running 14.10,
> > that creates a small backup of essential system files. What I want
> > to do is set up this script to scp the tarball to another, remote
> > system.
> > 
> > So, I need to create an account on the remote system and set up
> > keys, but I want this account to only be able to deposit the archive
> > somewhere, and not be able to get to a shell or do anything else.
> > 
> > Is it enough to set the shell for the user to something
> > like /bin/false? Will that user still be able to deposit the file
> > via scp? Is there anything else I can do to lock down that account?
> > 
> > Petter
> 
> yep, /bin/false should do it.  Just make sure you give them a home 
> directory for dumping files to (cron move job or something can handle
> it from there).

As it turns out, setting the shell to /bin/false or /usr/sbin/nologin
does *not* work. It seems scp requires a regular ssh connection to
transfer the files. Just thought I'd mention it in case anybody else
needs to do this.

I will probably look into setting up a separate sshd on another port
and chroot that. But that will have to happen tomorrow :)

Petter

-- 
"I'm ionized"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive."
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