noms-digital-studio/ansible-ssh-hardening

Name: ansible-ssh-hardening

Owner: NOMS Digital Studio

Description: This Ansible role provides numerous security-related ssh configurations, providing all-round base protection.

Created: 2017-08-11 07:53:30.0

Updated: 2017-08-11 07:53:31.0

Pushed: 2017-08-14 10:03:28.0

Homepage: http://dev-sec.io/

Size: 187

Language: Ruby

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README

ssh-hardening (Ansible Role)

Build Status Gitter Chat Ansible Galaxy

Description

This role provides secure ssh-client and ssh-server configurations. It is intended to be compliant with the DevSec SSH Baseline.

Warning: This role disables root-login on the target server! Please make sure you have another user with su or sudo permissions that can login into the server.

Requirements
Role Variables

| Name | Default Value | Description | | ————– | ————- | ———————————–| |network_ipv6_enable | false |true if IPv6 is needed| |ssh_client_cbc_required | false |true if CBC for ciphers is required. This is usually only necessary, if older M2M mechanism need to communicate with SSH, that don't have any of the configured secure ciphers enabled. CBC is a weak alternative. Anything weaker should be avoided and is thus not available.| |ssh_server_cbc_required | false |true if CBC for ciphers is required. This is usually only necessary, if older M2M mechanism need to communicate with SSH, that don't have any of the configured secure ciphers enabled. CBC is a weak alternative. Anything weaker should be avoided and is thus not available.| |ssh_client_weak_hmac | false |true if weaker HMAC mechanisms are required. This is usually only necessary, if older M2M mechanism need to communicate with SSH, that don't have any of the configured secure HMACs enabled.| |ssh_server_weak_hmac | false |true if weaker HMAC mechanisms are required. This is usually only necessary, if older M2M mechanism need to communicate with SSH, that don't have any of the configured secure HMACs enabled.| |ssh_client_weak_kex | false |true if weaker Key-Exchange (KEX) mechanisms are required. This is usually only necessary, if older M2M mechanism need to communicate with SSH, that don't have any of the configured secure KEXs enabled.| |ssh_server_weak_kex | false |true if weaker Key-Exchange (KEX) mechanisms are required. This is usually only necessary, if older M2M mechanism need to communicate with SSH, that don't have any of the configured secure KEXs enabled.| |ssh_server_ports | ['22'] |ports on which ssh-server should listen| |ssh_client_port | '22' |port to which ssh-client should connect| |ssh_listen_to | ['0.0.0.0'] |one or more ip addresses, to which ssh-server should listen to. Default is all adresseses, but should be configured to specific addresses for security reasons!| |ssh_host_key_files | ['/etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key', '/etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key', '/etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key'] |Host keys to look for when starting sshd.| |ssh_client_alive_interval | 600 | specifies an interval for sending keepalive messages | |ssh_client_alive_count | 3 | defines how often keep-alive messages are sent | |ssh_permit_tunnel | false | true if SSH Port Tunneling is required | |ssh_remote_hosts | [] | one or more hosts and their custom options for the ssh-client. Default is empty. See examples in defaults/main.yml.| |ssh_allow_root_with_key | false | false to disable root login altogether. Set to true to allow root to login via key-based mechanism.| |ssh_allow_tcp_forwarding | false | false to disable TCP Forwarding. Set to true to allow TCP Forwarding.| |ssh_allow_agent_forwarding | false | false to disable Agent Forwarding. Set to true to allow Agent Forwarding.| |ssh_use_pam | false | false to disable pam authentication.| |ssh_deny_users | '' | if specified, login is disallowed for user names that match one of the patterns.| |ssh_allow_users | '' | if specified, login is allowed only for user names that match one of the patterns.| |ssh_deny_groups | '' | if specified, login is disallowed for users whose primary group or supplementary group list matches one of the patterns.| |ssh_allow_groups | '' | if specified, login is allowed only for users whose primary group or supplementary group list matches one of the patterns.| |ssh_print_motd | false | false to disable printing of the MOTD| |ssh_print_last_log | false | false to disable display of last login information| |sftp_enabled | false | true to enable sftp configuration| |sftp_chroot_dir | /home/%u | change default sftp chroot location| |ssh_client_roaming | false | enable experimental client roaming| |sshd_moduli_minimum | 2048 | remove Diffie-Hellman parameters smaller than the defined size to mitigate logjam| |ssh_challengeresponseauthentication | false | Specifies whether challenge-response authentication is allowed (e.g. via PAM) | |ssh_client_password_login | false | true to allow password-based authentication with the ssh client | |ssh_server_password_login | false | true to allow password-based authentication with the ssh server |

Example Playbook
- hosts: localhost
  roles:
    - dev-sec.ssh-hardening
Local Testing

The preferred way of locally testing the role is to use Docker. You will have to install Docker on your system. See Get started for a Docker package suitable to for your system.

You can also use vagrant and Virtualbox or VMWare to run tests locally. You will have to install Virtualbox and Vagrant on your system. See Vagrant Downloads for a vagrant package suitable for your system. For all our tests we use test-kitchen. If you are not familiar with test-kitchen please have a look at their guide.

Next install test-kitchen:

stall dependencies
install bundler
le install
Testing with Docker
st test on one machine
le exec kitchen test default-ubuntu-1204

st on all machines
le exec kitchen test

r development
le exec kitchen create default-ubuntu-1204
le exec kitchen converge default-ubuntu-1204
Testing with Virtualbox
st test on one machine
HEN_YAML=".kitchen.vagrant.yml" bundle exec kitchen test default-ubuntu-1204

st on all machines
HEN_YAML=".kitchen.vagrant.yml" bundle exec kitchen test

r development
HEN_YAML=".kitchen.vagrant.yml" bundle exec kitchen create default-ubuntu-1204
HEN_YAML=".kitchen.vagrant.yml" bundle exec kitchen converge default-ubuntu-1204

For more information see test-kitchen

FAQ / Pitfalls

I can't log into my account. I have registered the client key, but it still doesn't let me it.

If you have exhausted all typical issues (firewall, network, key missing, wrong key, account disabled etc.), it may be that your account is locked. The quickest way to find out is to look at the password hash for your user:

sudo grep myuser /etc/shadow

If the hash includes an !, your account is locked:

myuser:!:16280:7:60:7:::

The proper way to solve this is to unlock the account (passwd -u myuser). If the user doesn't have a password, you should can unlock it via:

usermod -p "*" myuser

Alternatively, if you intend to use PAM, you enabled it via ssh_use_pam: true. PAM will allow locked users to get in with keys.

Why doesn't my application connect via SSH anymore?

Always look into log files first and if possible look at the negotation between client and server that is completed when connecting.

We have seen some issues in applications (based on python and ruby) that are due to their use of an outdated crypto set. This collides with this hardening module, which reduced the list of ciphers, message authentication codes (MACs) and key exchange (KEX) algorithms to a more secure selection.

If you find this isn't enough, feel free to activate the attributes cbc_requires for ciphers, weak_hmac for MACs and weak_kexfor KEX in the variables ssh_client or ssh_server based on where you want to support them.

After using the role Ansibles template/copy/file module does not work anymore!

This role deactivates SFTP. Ansible uses by default SFTP to transfer files to the remote hosts. You have to set scp_if_ssh = True in your ansible.cfg. This way Ansible uses SCP to copy files.

Cannot restart sshd-service due to lack of privileges

If you get the following error when running handler “restart sshd”

le to restart service ssh: Failed to restart ssh.service: Access denied

or

ure 1 running systemctl show for 'ssh': Failed to connect to bus: No such file or directory

either run the playbook as root (without become: yes at the playbook level), or add become: yes to the handler.

This is a bug with Ansible: see here and here for more information.

Contributing

See contributor guideline.

License and Author

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.


This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Grant Number U24TR002306. This work is solely the responsibility of the creators and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.