How to build a SSH Bastion host

[this is a technical blog post, but easy to follow]

recently I had to setup and present my idea of a ssh bastion host. You may have already heard this as jump host or a security ssh hoping station or ssh gateway or even something else.

The main concept

Disclaimer: This is just a proof of concept (PoC). May need a few adjustments.

The destination VM may be on another VPC, perhaps it does not have a public DNS or even a public IP. Think of this VM as not accessible. Only the ssh bastion server can reach this VM. So we need to first reach the bastion.

SSH Config

To begin with, I will share my initial sshd_config to get an idea of my current ssh setup

AcceptEnv LANG LC_*
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no
Compression no
MaxSessions 3
PasswordAuthentication no
PermitRootLogin no
Port 12345
PrintMotd no
Subsystem sftp  /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server
UseDNS no
UsePAM yes
X11Forwarding no
AllowUsers ebal

• I only allow, user ebal to connect via ssh.
• I do not allow the root user to login via ssh.
• I use ssh keys instead of passwords.

This configuration is almost identical to both VMs

• bastion (the name of the VM that acts as a bastion server)
• VM (the name of the destination VM that is behind a DMZ/firewall)

~/.ssh/config

I am using the ssh config file to have an easier user experience when using ssh

Host bastion
     Hostname 127.71.16.12
     Port 12345
     IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.vm

Host vm
     Hostname 192.13.13.186
     Port 23456

Host *
    User ebal
    ServerAliveInterval 300
    ServerAliveCountMax 10
    ConnectTimeout=60

Create a new user to test this

Let us create a new user for testing.

User/Group

$ sudo groupadd ebal_test
$ sudo useradd -g ebal_test -m ebal_test

$ id ebal_test
uid=1000(ebal_test) gid=1000(ebal_test) groups=1000(ebal_test)

Perms

Copy .ssh directory from current user (<== lazy sysadmin)

$ sudo cp -ravx /home/ebal/.ssh/ /home/ebal_test/
$ sudo chown -R ebal_test:ebal_test /home/ebal_test/.ssh

$ sudo ls -la ~ebal_test/.ssh/
total 12
drwxr-x---. 2 ebal_test ebal_test 4096 Sep 20  2019 .
drwx------. 3 ebal_test ebal_test 4096 Jun 23 15:56 ..
-r--r-----. 1 ebal_test ebal_test  181 Sep 20  2019 authorized_keys

$ sudo ls -ld ~ebal_test/.ssh/
drwxr-x---. 2 ebal_test ebal_test 4096 Sep 20  2019 /home/ebal_test/.ssh/

bastion sshd config

Edit the ssh daemon configuration file to append the below entries

cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config

AllowUsers ebal ebal_test

Match User ebal_test
   AllowAgentForwarding no
   AllowTcpForwarding yes
   X11Forwarding no
   PermitTunnel no
   GatewayPorts no
   ForceCommand echo 'This account can only be used for ProxyJump (ssh -J)'

Don’t forget to restart sshd

systemctl restart sshd

As you have seen above, I now allow two (2) users to access the ssh daemon (AllowUsers). This can also work with AllowGroups

Testing bastion

Let’s try to connect to this bastion VM

$ ssh bastion -l ebal_test uptime
This account can only be used for ProxyJump (ssh -J)

$ ssh bastion -l ebal_test
This account can only be used for ProxyJump (ssh -J)
Connection to 127.71.16.12 closed.

Interesting …

We can not login into this machine.

Let’s try with our personal user

$ ssh bastion -l ebal uptime
 18:49:14 up 3 days,  9:14,  0 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

Perfect.

Let’s try from windows (mobaxterm)

mobaxterm is putty on steroids! There is also a portable version, so there is no need of installation. You can just download and extract it.

Interesting…

Destination VM

Now it is time to test our access to the destination VM

$ ssh VM
ssh: connect to host 192.13.13.186 port 23456: Connection refused

bastion

$ ssh -J ebal_test@bastion ebal@vm uptime
 19:07:25 up 22:24,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00

$ ssh -J ebal_test@bastion ebal@vm
Last login: Tue Jun 23 19:05:29 2020 from 94.242.59.170
ebal@vm:~$
ebal@vm:~$ exit
logout

Success !

Explain Command

Using this command

ssh -J ebal_test@bastion ebal@vm

• is telling the ssh client command to use the ProxyJump feature.
• Using the user ebal_test on bastion machine and
• connect with the user ebal on vm.

So we can have different users!

ssh/config

Now, it is time to put everything under our ~./ssh/config file

Host bastion
     Hostname 127.71.16.12
     Port 12345
     User ebal_test
     IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.vm

Host vm
     Hostname 192.13.13.186
     ProxyJump bastion
     User ebal
     Port 23456

and try again

$ ssh vm uptime
 19:17:19 up 22:33,  1 user,  load average: 0.22, 0.11, 0.03

mobaxterm with bastion