The previous version was OpenSSH 9.1
OpenSSH 9.3p2 (2023-07-19)
OpenSSH 9.3p2 was released on 2023-07-19. It is available from the
mirrors listed at https://www.openssh.com/.
OpenSSH is a 100% complete SSH protocol 2.0 implementation and
includes sftp client and server support.
Once again, we would like to thank the OpenSSH community for their
continued support of the project, especially those who contributed
code or patches, reported bugs, tested snapshots or donated to the
project. More information on donations may be found at:
https://www.openssh.com/donations.html
Changes since OpenSSH 9.3
=========================
This release fixes a security bug.
Security
========
Fix CVE-2023-38408 - a condition where specific libaries loaded via
ssh-agent(1)'s PKCS#11 support could be abused to achieve remote
code execution via a forwarded agent socket if the following
conditions are met:
* Exploitation requires the presence of specific libraries on
the victim system.
* Remote exploitation requires that the agent was forwarded
to an attacker-controlled system.
Exploitation can also be prevented by starting ssh-agent(1) with an
empty PKCS#11/FIDO allowlist (ssh-agent -P '') or by configuring
an allowlist that contains only specific provider libraries.
This vulnerability was discovered and demonstrated to be exploitable
by the Qualys Security Advisory team.
In addition to removing the main precondition for exploitation,
this release removes the ability for remote ssh-agent(1) clients
to load PKCS#11 modules by default (see below).
Potentially-incompatible changes
--------------------------------
* ssh-agent(8): the agent will now refuse requests to load PKCS#11
modules issued by remote clients by default. A flag has been added
to restore the previous behaviour "-Oallow-remote-pkcs11".
Note that ssh-agent(8) depends on the SSH client to identify
requests that are remote. The OpenSSH >=8.9 ssh(1) client does
this, but forwarding access to an agent socket using other tools
may circumvent this restriction.
Checksums:
==========
- SHA1 (openssh-9.3p2.tar.gz) = 219cf700c317f400bb20b001c0406056f7188ea4
- SHA256 (openssh-9.3p2.tar.gz) = IA6+FH9ss/EB/QzfngJEKvfdyimN/9n0VoeOfMrGdug=
Please note that the SHA256 signatures are base64 encoded and not
hexadecimal (which is the default for most checksum tools). The PGP
key used to sign the releases is available from the mirror sites:
https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/RELEASE_KEY.asc
Reporting Bugs:
===============
- Please read https://www.openssh.com/report.html
Security bugs should be reported directly to openssh@openssh.com
OpenSSH 9.3/9.3p1 (2023-03-15)
OpenSSH 9.3 was released on 2023-03-15. It is available from the
mirrors listed at https://www.openssh.com/.
OpenSSH is a 100% complete SSH protocol 2.0 implementation and
includes sftp client and server support.
Once again, we would like to thank the OpenSSH community for their
continued support of the project, especially those who contributed
code or patches, reported bugs, tested snapshots or donated to the
project. More information on donations may be found at:
https://www.openssh.com/donations.html
Changes since OpenSSH 9.2
=========================
This release fixes a number of security bugs.
Security
========
This release contains fixes for a security problem and a memory
safety problem. The memory safety problem is not believed to be
exploitable, but we report most network-reachable memory faults as
security bugs.
* ssh-add(1): when adding smartcard keys to ssh-agent(1) with the
per-hop destination constraints (ssh-add -h ...) added in OpenSSH
8.9, a logic error prevented the constraints from being
communicated to the agent. This resulted in the keys being added
without constraints. The common cases of non-smartcard keys and
keys without destination constraints are unaffected. This problem
was reported by Luci Stanescu.
* ssh(1): Portable OpenSSH provides an implementation of the
getrrsetbyname(3) function if the standard library does not
provide it, for use by the VerifyHostKeyDNS feature. A
specifically crafted DNS response could cause this function to
perform an out-of-bounds read of adjacent stack data, but this
condition does not appear to be exploitable beyond denial-of-
service to the ssh(1) client.
The getrrsetbyname(3) replacement is only included if the system's
standard library lacks this function and portable OpenSSH was not
compiled with the ldns library (--with-ldns). getrrsetbyname(3) is
only invoked if using VerifyHostKeyDNS to fetch SSHFP records. This
problem was found by the Coverity static analyzer.
New features
------------
* ssh-keygen(1), ssh-keyscan(1): accept -Ohashalg=sha1|sha256 when
outputting SSHFP fingerprints to allow algorithm selection. bz3493
* sshd(8): add a `sshd -G` option that parses and prints the
effective configuration without attempting to load private keys
and perform other checks. This allows usage of the option before
keys have been generated and for configuration evaluation and
verification by unprivileged users.
Bugfixes
--------
* scp(1), sftp(1): fix progressmeter corruption on wide displays;
bz3534
* ssh-add(1), ssh-keygen(1): use RSA/SHA256 when testing usability
of private keys as some systems are starting to disable RSA/SHA1
in libcrypto.
* sftp-server(8): fix a memory leak. GHPR363
* ssh(1), sshd(8), ssh-keyscan(1): remove vestigal protocol
compatibility code and simplify what's left.
* Fix a number of low-impact Coverity static analysis findings.
These include several reported via bz2687
* ssh_config(5), sshd_config(5): mention that some options are not
first-match-wins.
* Rework logging for the regression tests. Regression tests will now
capture separate logs for each ssh and sshd invocation in a test.
* ssh(1): make `ssh -Q CASignatureAlgorithms` work as the manpage
says it should; bz3532.
* ssh(1): ensure that there is a terminating newline when adding a
new entry to known_hosts; bz3529
Portability
-----------
* sshd(8): harden Linux seccomp sandbox. Move to an allowlist of
mmap(2), madvise(2) and futex(2) flags, removing some concerning
kernel attack surface.
* sshd(8): improve Linux seccomp-bpf sandbox for older systems;
bz3537
Checksums:
==========
- SHA1 (openssh-9.3.tar.gz) = 5f9d2f73ddfe94f3f0a78bdf46704b6ad7b66ec7
- SHA256 (openssh-9.3.tar.gz) = eRcXkFZByz70DUBUcyIdvU0pVxP2X280FrmV8pyUdrk=
- SHA1 (openssh-9.3p1.tar.gz) = 610959871bf8d6baafc3525811948f85b5dd84ab
- SHA256 (openssh-9.3p1.tar.gz) = 6bq6dwGnalHz2Fpiw4OjydzZf6kAuFm8fbEUwYaK+Kg=
Please note that the SHA256 signatures are base64 encoded and not
hexadecimal (which is the default for most checksum tools). The PGP
key used to sign the releases is available from the mirror sites:
https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/RELEASE_KEY.asc
Reporting Bugs:
===============
- Please read https://www.openssh.com/report.html
Security bugs should be reported directly to openssh@openssh.com
OpenSSH 9.2/9.2p1 (2023-02-02)
OpenSSH 9.2 was released on 2023-02-02. It is available from the
mirrors listed at https://www.openssh.com/.
OpenSSH is a 100% complete SSH protocol 2.0 implementation and
includes sftp client and server support.
Once again, we would like to thank the OpenSSH community for their
continued support of the project, especially those who contributed
code or patches, reported bugs, tested snapshots or donated to the
project. More information on donations may be found at:
https://www.openssh.com/donations.html
Changes since OpenSSH 9.1
=========================
This release fixes a number of security bugs.
Security
========
This release contains fixes for two security problems and a memory
safety problem. The memory safety problem is not believed to be
exploitable, but we report most network-reachable memory faults as
security bugs.
* sshd(8): fix a pre-authentication double-free memory fault
introduced in OpenSSH 9.1. This is not believed to be exploitable,
and it occurs in the unprivileged pre-auth process that is
subject to chroot(2) and is further sandboxed on most major
platforms.
* ssh(8): in OpenSSH releases after 8.7, the PermitRemoteOpen option
would ignore its first argument unless it was one of the special
keywords "any" or "none", causing the permission list to fail open
if only one permission was specified. bz3515
* ssh(1): if the CanonicalizeHostname and CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs
options were enabled, and the system/libc resolver did not check
that names in DNS responses were valid, then use of these options
could allow an attacker with control of DNS to include invalid
characters (possibly including wildcards) in names added to
known_hosts files when they were updated. These names would still
have to match the CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs allow-list, so
practical exploitation appears unlikely.
Potentially-incompatible changes
--------------------------------
* ssh(1): add a new EnableEscapeCommandline ssh_config(5) option that
controls whether the client-side ~C escape sequence that provides a
command-line is available. Among other things, the ~C command-line
could be used to add additional port-forwards at runtime.
This option defaults to "no", disabling the ~C command-line that
was previously enabled by default. Turning off the command-line
allows platforms that support sandboxing of the ssh(1) client
(currently only OpenBSD) to use a stricter default sandbox policy.
New features
------------
* sshd(8): add support for channel inactivity timeouts via a new
sshd_config(5) ChannelTimeout directive. This allows channels that
have not seen traffic in a configurable interval to be
automatically closed. Different timeouts may be applied to session,
X11, agent and TCP forwarding channels.
* sshd(8): add a sshd_config UnusedConnectionTimeout option to
terminate client connections that have no open channels for a
length of time. This complements the ChannelTimeout option above.
* sshd(8): add a -V (version) option to sshd like the ssh client has.
* ssh(1): add a "Host" line to the output of ssh -G showing the
original hostname argument. bz3343
* scp(1), sftp(1): add a -X option to both scp(1) and sftp(1) to
allow control over some SFTP protocol parameters: the copy buffer
length and the number of in-flight requests, both of which are used
during upload/download. Previously these could be controlled in
sftp(1) only. This makes them available in both SFTP protocol
clients using the same option character sequence.
* ssh-keyscan(1): allow scanning of complete CIDR address ranges,
e.g. "ssh-keyscan 192.168.0.0/24". If a CIDR range is passed, then
it will be expanded to all possible addresses in the range
including the all-0s and all-1s addresses. bz#976
* ssh(1): support dynamic remote port forwarding in escape
command-line's -R processing. bz#3499
Bugfixes
--------
* ssh(1): when restoring non-blocking mode to stdio fds, restore
exactly the flags that ssh started with and don't just clobber them
with zero, as this could also remove the append flag from the set.
bz3523
* ssh(1): avoid printf("%s", NULL) if using UserKnownHostsFile=none
and a hostkey in one of the system known hosts file changes.
* scp(1): switch scp from using pipes to a socket-pair for
communication with its ssh sub-processes, matching how sftp(1)
operates.
* sshd(8): clear signal mask early in main(); sshd may have been
started with one or more signals masked (sigprocmask(2) is not
cleared on fork/exec) and this could interfere with various things,
e.g. the login grace timer. Execution environments that fail to
clear the signal mask before running sshd are clearly broken, but
apparently they do exist.
* ssh(1): warn if no host keys for hostbased auth can be loaded.
* sshd(8): Add server debugging for hostbased auth that is queued and
sent to the client after successful authentication, but also logged
to assist in diagnosis of HostbasedAuthentication problems. bz3507
* ssh(1): document use of the IdentityFile option as being usable to
list public keys as well as private keys. GHPR352
* sshd(8): check for and disallow MaxStartups values less than or
equal to zero during config parsing, rather than failing later at
runtime. bz3489
* ssh-keygen(1): fix parsing of hex cert expiry times specified on
the command-line when acting as a CA.
* scp(1): when scp(1) is using the SFTP protocol for transport (the
default), better match scp/rcp's handling of globs that don't match
the globbed characters but do match literally (e.g. trying to
transfer a file named "foo.[1]"). Previously scp(1) in SFTP mode
would not match these pathnames but legacy scp/rcp mode would.
bz3488
* ssh-agent(1): document the "-O no-restrict-websafe" command-line
option.
* ssh(1): honour user's umask(2) if it is more restrictive then the
ssh default (022).
Portability
-----------
* sshd(8): allow writev(2) in the Linux seccomp sandbox. This seems
to be used by recent glibcs at least in some configurations during
error conditions. bz3512.
* sshd(8): simply handling of SSH_CONNECTION PAM env var, removing
global variable and checking the return value from pam_putenv.
bz3508
* sshd(8): disable SANDBOX_SECCOMP_FILTER_DEBUG that was mistakenly
enabled during the OpenSSH 9.1 release cycle.
* misc: update autotools and regenerate the config files using the
latest autotools
* all: use -fzero-call-used-regs=used on clang 15 instead of
-fzero-call-used-reg=all, as some versions of clang 15 have
miscompile code when it was enabled. bz3475
* sshd(8): defer PRNG seeding until after the initial closefrom(2)
call. PRNG seeding will initialize OpenSSL, and some engine
providers (e.g. Intel's QAT) will open descriptors for their own
use that closefrom(2) could clobber. bz3483
* misc: in the poll(2)/ppoll(2) compatibility code, avoid assuming
the layout of fd_set.
* sftp-server(8), ssh-agent(1): fix ptrace(2) disabling on older
FreeBSD kernels. Some versions do not support using id 0 to refer
to the current PID for procctl, so try again with getpid()
explicitly before failing.
* configure.ac: fix -Wstrict-prototypes in configure test code.
Clang 16 now warns on this and legacy prototypes will be removed
in C23. GHPR355
* configure.ac: fix setres*id checks to work with clang-16. glibc
has the prototypes for setresuid behind _GNU_SOURCE, and clang 16
will error out on implicit function definitions. bz3497
Checksums:
==========
- SHA1 (openssh-9.2.tar.gz) = e4b806b7c81b87d6c90afe97b3d016ba6cf3ba1c
- SHA256 (openssh-9.2.tar.gz) = yYe9uaaWSeetXGXOxuaaEiIsLnvITmGW+l5dgMZb9QU=
- SHA1 (openssh-9.2p1.tar.gz) = 3b172b8e971773a7018bbf3231f6589ae539ca4b
- SHA256 (openssh-9.2p1.tar.gz) = P2bb8WVftF9Q4cVtpiqwEhjCKIB7ITONY068351xz0Y=
Please note that the SHA256 signatures are base64 encoded and not
hexadecimal (which is the default for most checksum tools). The PGP
key used to sign the releases is available from the mirror sites:
https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/RELEASE_KEY.asc
Reporting Bugs:
===============
- Please read https://www.openssh.com/report.html
Security bugs should be reported directly to openssh@openssh.com
mirrors listed at https://www.openssh.com/.
OpenSSH is a 100% complete SSH protocol 2.0 implementation and
includes sftp client and server support.
Once again, we would like to thank the OpenSSH community for their
continued support of the project, especially those who contributed
code or patches, reported bugs, tested snapshots or donated to the
project. More information on donations may be found at:
https://www.openssh.com/donations.html
Future deprecation notice
=========================
It is now possible[1] to perform chosen-prefix attacks against the
SHA-1 algorithm for less than USD$50K. For this reason, we will be
disabling the "ssh-rsa" public key signature algorithm by default in a
near-future release.
This algorithm is unfortunately still used widely despite the
existence of better alternatives, being the only remaining public key
signature algorithm specified by the original SSH RFCs.
The better alternatives include:
* The RFC8332 RSA SHA-2 signature algorithms rsa-sha2-256/512. These
algorithms have the advantage of using the same key type as
"ssh-rsa" but use the safe SHA-2 hash algorithms. These have been
supported since OpenSSH 7.2 and are already used by default if the
client and server support them.
* The ssh-ed25519 signature algorithm. It has been supported in
OpenSSH since release 6.5.
* The RFC5656 ECDSA algorithms: ecdsa-sha2-nistp256/384/521. These
have been supported by OpenSSH since release 5.7.
To check whether a server is using the weak ssh-rsa public key
algorithm, for host authentication, try to connect to it after
removing the ssh-rsa algorithm from ssh(1)'s allowed list:
ssh -oHostKeyAlgorithms=-ssh-rsa user@host
If the host key verification fails and no other supported host key
types are available, the server software on that host should be
upgraded.
We intend to enable UpdateHostKeys by default in the next OpenSSH
release. This will assist the client by automatically migrating to
better algorithms. Users may consider enabling this option manually.
[1] "SHA-1 is a Shambles: First Chosen-Prefix Collision on SHA-1 and
Application to the PGP Web of Trust" Leurent, G and Peyrin, T
(2020) https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/014.pdf
Security
========
* ssh-agent(1): restrict ssh-agent from signing web challenges for
FIDO/U2F keys.
When signing messages in ssh-agent using a FIDO key that has an
application string that does not start with "ssh:", ensure that the
message being signed is one of the forms expected for the SSH protocol
(currently public key authentication and sshsig signatures).
This prevents ssh-agent forwarding on a host that has FIDO keys
attached granting the ability for the remote side to sign challenges
for web authentication using those keys too.
Note that the converse case of web browsers signing SSH challenges is
already precluded because no web RP can have the "ssh:" prefix in the
application string that we require.
* ssh-keygen(1): Enable FIDO 2.1 credProtect extension when generating
a FIDO resident key.
The recent FIDO 2.1 Client to Authenticator Protocol introduced a
"credProtect" feature to better protect resident keys. We use this
option to require a PIN prior to all operations that may retrieve
a resident key from a FIDO token.
Potentially-incompatible changes
================================
This release includes a number of changes that may affect existing
configurations:
* For FIDO/U2F support, OpenSSH recommends the use of libfido2 1.5.0
or greater. Older libraries have limited support at the expense of
disabling particular features. These include resident keys, PIN-
required keys and multiple attached tokens.
* ssh-keygen(1): the format of the attestation information optionally
recorded when a FIDO key is generated has changed. It now includes
the authenticator data needed to validate attestation signatures.
* The API between OpenSSH and the FIDO token middleware has changed
and the SSH_SK_VERSION_MAJOR version has been incremented as a
result. Third-party middleware libraries must support the current
API version (7) to work with OpenSSH 8.4.
* The portable OpenSSH distribution now requires automake to rebuild
the configure script and supporting files. This is not required when
simply building portable OpenSSH from a release tar file.
Changes since OpenSSH 8.3
=========================
New features
------------
* ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1): support for FIDO keys that require a PIN for
each use. These keys may be generated using ssh-keygen using a new
"verify-required" option. When a PIN-required key is used, the user
will be prompted for a PIN to complete the signature operation.
* sshd(8): authorized_keys now supports a new "verify-required"
option to require FIDO signatures assert that the token verified
that the user was present before making the signature. The FIDO
protocol supports multiple methods for user-verification, but
currently OpenSSH only supports PIN verification.
* sshd(8), ssh-keygen(1): add support for verifying FIDO webauthn
signatures. Webauthn is a standard for using FIDO keys in web
browsers. These signatures are a slightly different format to plain
FIDO signatures and thus require explicit support.
* ssh(1): allow some keywords to expand shell-style ${ENV}
environment variables. The supported keywords are CertificateFile,
ControlPath, IdentityAgent and IdentityFile, plus LocalForward and
RemoteForward when used for Unix domain socket paths. bz#3140
* ssh(1), ssh-agent(1): allow some additional control over the use of
ssh-askpass via a new $SSH_ASKPASS_REQUIRE environment variable,
including forcibly enabling and disabling its use. bz#69
* ssh(1): allow ssh_config(5)'s AddKeysToAgent keyword accept a time
limit for keys in addition to its current flag options. Time-
limited keys will automatically be removed from ssh-agent after
their expiry time has passed.
* scp(1), sftp(1): allow the -A flag to explicitly enable agent
forwarding in scp and sftp. The default remains to not forward an
agent, even when ssh_config enables it.
* ssh(1): add a '%k' TOKEN that expands to the effective HostKey of
the destination. This allows, e.g., keeping host keys in individual
files using "UserKnownHostsFile ~/.ssh/known_hosts.d/%k". bz#1654
* ssh(1): add %-TOKEN, environment variable and tilde expansion to
the UserKnownHostsFile directive, allowing the path to be
completed by the configuration (e.g. bz#1654)
* ssh-keygen(1): allow "ssh-add -d -" to read keys to be deleted
from stdin. bz#3180
* sshd(8): improve logging for MaxStartups connection throttling.
sshd will now log when it starts and stops throttling and periodically
while in this state. bz#3055
Bugfixes
--------
* ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1): better support for multiple attached FIDO
tokens. In cases where OpenSSH cannot unambiguously determine which
token to direct a request to, the user is now required to select a
token by touching it. In cases of operations that require a PIN to
be verified, this avoids sending the wrong PIN to the wrong token
and incrementing the token's PIN failure counter (tokens
effectively erase their keys after too many PIN failures).
* sshd(8): fix Include before Match in sshd_config; bz#3122
* ssh(1): close stdin/out/error when forking after authentication
completes ("ssh -f ...") bz#3137
* ssh(1), sshd(8): limit the amount of channel input data buffered,
avoiding peers that advertise large windows but are slow to read
from causing high memory consumption.
* ssh-agent(1): handle multiple requests sent in a single write() to
the agent.
* sshd(8): allow sshd_config longer than 256k
* sshd(8): avoid spurious "Unable to load host key" message when sshd
load a private key but no public counterpart
* ssh(1): prefer the default hostkey algorithm list whenever we have
a hostkey that matches its best-preference algorithm.
* sshd(1): when ordering the hostkey algorithms to request from a
server, prefer certificate types if the known_hosts files contain a key
marked as a @cert-authority; bz#3157
* ssh(1): perform host key fingerprint comparisons for the "Are you
sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])?"
prompt with case sensitivity.
* sshd(8): ensure that address/masklen mismatches in sshd_config
yield fatal errors at daemon start time rather than later when
they are evaluated.
* ssh-keygen(1): ensure that certificate extensions are lexically
sorted. Previously if the user specified a custom extension then
the everything would be in order except the custom ones. bz#3198
* ssh(1): also compare username when checking for JumpHost loops.
bz#3057
* ssh-keygen(1): preserve group/world read permission on known_hosts
files across runs of "ssh-keygen -Rf /path". The old behaviour was
to remove all rights for group/other. bz#3146
* ssh-keygen(1): Mention the [-a rounds] flag in the ssh-keygen
manual page and usage().
* sshd(8): explicitly construct path to ~/.ssh/rc rather than
relying on it being relative to the current directory, so that it
can still be found if the shell startup changes its directory.
bz#3185
* sshd(8): when redirecting sshd's log output to a file, undo this
redirection after the session child process is forked(). Fixes
missing log messages when using this feature under some
circumstances.
* sshd(8): start ClientAliveInterval bookkeeping before first pass
through select() loop; fixed theoretical case where busy sshd may
ignore timeouts from client.
* ssh(1): only reset the ServerAliveInterval check when we receive
traffic from the server and ignore traffic from a port forwarding
client, preventing a client from keeping a connection alive when
it should be terminated. bz#2265
* ssh-keygen(1): avoid spurious error message when ssh-keygen
creates files outside ~/.ssh
* sftp-client(1): fix off-by-one error that caused sftp downloads to
make one more concurrent request that desired. This prevented using
sftp(1) in unpipelined request/response mode, which is useful when
debugging. bz#3054
* ssh(1), sshd(8): handle EINTR in waitfd() and timeout_connect()
helpers. bz#3071
* ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1): defer creation of ~/.ssh until we attempt to
write to it so we don't leave an empty .ssh directory when it's not
needed. bz#3156
* ssh(1), sshd(8): fix multiplier when parsing time specifications
when handling seconds after other units. bz#3171
Portability
-----------
* sshd(8): always send any PAM account messages. If the PAM account
stack returns any messages, always send them to the user and not
just if the check succeeds. bz#2049
* Implement some backwards compatibility for libfido2 libraries
older than 1.5.0. Note that use of an older library will result
in the loss of certain features including resident key support,
PIN support and support for multiple attached tokens.
* configure fixes for XCode 12
* gnome-ssh-askpass3: ensure the "close" button is not focused by
default for SSH_ASKPASS_PROMPT=none prompts. Avoids space/enter
accidentally dismissing FIDO touch notifications.
* gnome-ssh-askpass3: allow some control over textarea colour via
$GNOME_SSH_ASKPASS_FG_COLOR and $GNOME_SSH_ASKPASS_BG_COLOR
environment variables.
* sshd(8): document another PAM spec problem in a frustrated comment
* sshd(8): support NetBSD's utmpx.ut_ss address field. bz#960
* Add the ssh-sk-helper binary and its manpage to the RPM spec file
* Detect the Frankenstein monster of Linux/X32 and allow the sandbox
to function there. bz#3085
OpenSSH 8.2 was released on 2020-02-14. It is available from the
mirrors listed at https://www.openssh.com/.
OpenSSH is a 100% complete SSH protocol 2.0 implementation and
includes sftp client and server support.
Once again, we would like to thank the OpenSSH community for their
continued support of the project, especially those who contributed
code or patches, reported bugs, tested snapshots or donated to the
project. More information on donations may be found at:
https://www.openssh.com/donations.html
Future deprecation notice
=========================
It is now possible[1] to perform chosen-prefix attacks against the
SHA-1 hash algorithm for less than USD$50K. For this reason, we will
be disabling the "ssh-rsa" public key signature algorithm that depends
on SHA-1 by default in a near-future release.
This algorithm is unfortunately still used widely despite the
existence of better alternatives, being the only remaining public key
signature algorithm specified by the original SSH RFCs.
The better alternatives include:
* The RFC8332 RSA SHA-2 signature algorithms rsa-sha2-256/512. These
algorithms have the advantage of using the same key type as
"ssh-rsa" but use the safe SHA-2 hash algorithms. These have been
supported since OpenSSH 7.2 and are already used by default if the
client and server support them.
* The ssh-ed25519 signature algorithm. It has been supported in
OpenSSH since release 6.5.
* The RFC5656 ECDSA algorithms: ecdsa-sha2-nistp256/384/521. These
have been supported by OpenSSH since release 5.7.
To check whether a server is using the weak ssh-rsa public key
algorithm for host authentication, try to connect to it after
removing the ssh-rsa algorithm from ssh(1)'s allowed list:
ssh -oHostKeyAlgorithms=-ssh-rsa user@host
If the host key verification fails and no other supported host key
types are available, the server software on that host should be
upgraded.
A future release of OpenSSH will enable UpdateHostKeys by default
to allow the client to automatically migrate to better algorithms.
Users may consider enabling this option manually.
[1] "SHA-1 is a Shambles: First Chosen-Prefix Collision on SHA-1 and
Application to the PGP Web of Trust" Leurent, G and Peyrin, T
(2020) https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/014.pdf
Security
========
* ssh(1), sshd(8), ssh-keygen(1): this release removes the "ssh-rsa"
(RSA/SHA1) algorithm from those accepted for certificate signatures
(i.e. the client and server CASignatureAlgorithms option) and will
use the rsa-sha2-512 signature algorithm by default when the
ssh-keygen(1) CA signs new certificates.
Certificates are at special risk to the aforementioned SHA1
collision vulnerability as an attacker has effectively unlimited
time in which to craft a collision that yields them a valid
certificate, far more than the relatively brief LoginGraceTime
window that they have to forge a host key signature.
The OpenSSH certificate format includes a CA-specified (typically
random) nonce value near the start of the certificate that should
make exploitation of chosen-prefix collisions in this context
challenging, as the attacker does not have full control over the
prefix that actually gets signed. Nonetheless, SHA1 is now a
demonstrably broken algorithm and futher improvements in attacks
are highly likely.
OpenSSH releases prior to 7.2 do not support the newer RSA/SHA2
algorithms and will refuse to accept certificates signed by an
OpenSSH 8.2+ CA using RSA keys unless the unsafe algorithm is
explicitly selected during signing ("ssh-keygen -t ssh-rsa").
Older clients/servers may use another CA key type such as
ssh-ed25519 (supported since OpenSSH 6.5) or one of the
ecdsa-sha2-nistp256/384/521 types (supported since OpenSSH 5.7)
instead if they cannot be upgraded.
Potentially-incompatible changes
================================
This release includes a number of changes that may affect existing
configurations:
* ssh(1), sshd(8): the above removal of "ssh-rsa" from the accepted
CASignatureAlgorithms list.
* ssh(1), sshd(8): this release removes diffie-hellman-group14-sha1
from the default key exchange proposal for both the client and
server.
* ssh-keygen(1): the command-line options related to the generation
and screening of safe prime numbers used by the
diffie-hellman-group-exchange-* key exchange algorithms have
changed. Most options have been folded under the -O flag.
* sshd(8): the sshd listener process title visible to ps(1) has
changed to include information about the number of connections that
are currently attempting authentication and the limits configured
by MaxStartups.
* ssh-sk-helper(8): this is a new binary. It is used by the FIDO/U2F
support to provide address-space isolation for token middleware
libraries (including the internal one). It needs to be installed
in the expected path, typically under /usr/libexec or similar.
Changes since OpenSSH 8.1
=========================
This release contains some significant new features.
FIDO/U2F Support
----------------
This release adds support for FIDO/U2F hardware authenticators to
OpenSSH. U2F/FIDO are open standards for inexpensive two-factor
authentication hardware that are widely used for website
authentication. In OpenSSH FIDO devices are supported by new public
key types "ecdsa-sk" and "ed25519-sk", along with corresponding
certificate types.
ssh-keygen(1) may be used to generate a FIDO token-backed key, after
which they may be used much like any other key type supported by
OpenSSH, so long as the hardware token is attached when the keys are
used. FIDO tokens also generally require the user explicitly authorise
operations by touching or tapping them.
Generating a FIDO key requires the token be attached, and will usually
require the user tap the token to confirm the operation:
$ ssh-keygen -t ecdsa-sk -f ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk
Generating public/private ecdsa-sk key pair.
You may need to touch your security key to authorize key generation.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/djm/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/djm/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk
Your public key has been saved in /home/djm/.ssh/id_ecdsa_sk.pub
This will yield a public and private key-pair. The private key file
should be useless to an attacker who does not have access to the
physical token. After generation, this key may be used like any other
supported key in OpenSSH and may be listed in authorized_keys, added
to ssh-agent(1), etc. The only additional stipulation is that the FIDO
token that the key belongs to must be attached when the key is used.
FIDO tokens are most commonly connected via USB but may be attached
via other means such as Bluetooth or NFC. In OpenSSH, communication
with the token is managed via a middleware library, specified by the
SecurityKeyProvider directive in ssh/sshd_config(5) or the
$SSH_SK_PROVIDER environment variable for ssh-keygen(1) and
ssh-add(1). The API for this middleware is documented in the sk-api.h
and PROTOCOL.u2f files in the source distribution.
OpenSSH includes a middleware ("SecurityKeyProvider=internal") with
support for USB tokens. It is automatically enabled in OpenBSD and may
be enabled in portable OpenSSH via the configure flag
--with-security-key-builtin. If the internal middleware is enabled
then it is automatically used by default. This internal middleware
requires that libfido2 (https://github.com/Yubico/libfido2) and its
dependencies be installed. We recommend that packagers of portable
OpenSSH enable the built-in middleware, as it provides the
lowest-friction experience for users.
Note: FIDO/U2F tokens are required to implement the ECDSA-P256
"ecdsa-sk" key type, but hardware support for Ed25519 "ed25519-sk" is
less common. Similarly, not all hardware tokens support some of the
optional features such as resident keys.
The protocol-level changes to support FIDO/U2F keys in SSH are
documented in the PROTOCOL.u2f file in the OpenSSH source
distribution.
There are a number of supporting changes to this feature:
* ssh-keygen(1): add a "no-touch-required" option when generating
FIDO-hosted keys, that disables their default behaviour of
requiring a physical touch/tap on the token during authentication.
Note: not all tokens support disabling the touch requirement.
* sshd(8): add a sshd_config PubkeyAuthOptions directive that
collects miscellaneous public key authentication-related options
for sshd(8). At present it supports only a single option
"no-touch-required". This causes sshd to skip its default check for
FIDO/U2F keys that the signature was authorised by a touch or press
event on the token hardware.
* ssh(1), sshd(8), ssh-keygen(1): add a "no-touch-required" option
for authorized_keys and a similar extension for certificates. This
option disables the default requirement that FIDO key signatures
attest that the user touched their key to authorize them, mirroring
the similar PubkeyAuthOptions sshd_config option.
* ssh-keygen(1): add support for the writing the FIDO attestation
information that is returned when new keys are generated via the
"-O write-attestation=/path" option. FIDO attestation certificates
may be used to verify that a FIDO key is hosted in trusted
hardware. OpenSSH does not currently make use of this information,
beyond optionally writing it to disk.
FIDO2 resident keys
-------------------
FIDO/U2F OpenSSH keys consist of two parts: a "key handle" part stored
in the private key file on disk, and a per-device private key that is
unique to each FIDO/U2F token and that cannot be exported from the
token hardware. These are combined by the hardware at authentication
time to derive the real key that is used to sign authentication
challenges.
For tokens that are required to move between computers, it can be
cumbersome to have to move the private key file first. To avoid this
requirement, tokens implementing the newer FIDO2 standard support
"resident keys", where it is possible to effectively retrieve the key
handle part of the key from the hardware.
OpenSSH supports this feature, allowing resident keys to be generated
using the ssh-keygen(1) "-O resident" flag. This will produce a
public/private key pair as usual, but it will be possible to retrieve
the private key part from the token later. This may be done using
"ssh-keygen -K", which will download all available resident keys from
the tokens attached to the host and write public/private key files
for them. It is also possible to download and add resident keys
directly to ssh-agent(1) without writing files to the file-system
using "ssh-add -K".
Resident keys are indexed on the token by the application string and
user ID. By default, OpenSSH uses an application string of "ssh:" and
an empty user ID. If multiple resident keys on a single token are
desired then it may be necessary to override one or both of these
defaults using the ssh-keygen(1) "-O application=" or "-O user="
options. Note: OpenSSH will only download and use resident keys whose
application string begins with "ssh:"
Storing both parts of a key on a FIDO token increases the likelihood
of an attacker being able to use a stolen token device. For this
reason, tokens should enforce PIN authentication before allowing
download of keys, and users should set a PIN on their tokens before
creating any resident keys.
Other New Features
------------------
* sshd(8): add an Include sshd_config keyword that allows including
additional configuration files via glob(3) patterns. bz2468
* ssh(1)/sshd(8): make the LE (low effort) DSCP code point available
via the IPQoS directive; bz2986,
* ssh(1): when AddKeysToAgent=yes is set and the key contains no
comment, add the key to the agent with the key's path as the
comment. bz2564
* ssh-keygen(1), ssh-agent(1): expose PKCS#11 key labels and X.509
subjects as key comments, rather than simply listing the PKCS#11
provider library path. PR138
* ssh-keygen(1): allow PEM export of DSA and ECDSA keys; bz3091
* ssh(1), sshd(8): make zlib compile-time optional, available via the
Makefile.inc ZLIB flag on OpenBSD or via the --with-zlib configure
option for OpenSSH portable.
* sshd(8): when clients get denied by MaxStartups, send a
notification prior to the SSH2 protocol banner according to
RFC4253 section 4.2.
* ssh(1), ssh-agent(1): when invoking the $SSH_ASKPASS prompt
program, pass a hint to the program to describe the type of
desired prompt. The possible values are "confirm" (indicating
that a yes/no confirmation dialog with no text entry should be
shown), "none" (to indicate an informational message only), or
blank for the original ssh-askpass behaviour of requesting a
password/phrase.
* ssh(1): allow forwarding a different agent socket to the path
specified by $SSH_AUTH_SOCK, by extending the existing ForwardAgent
option to accepting an explicit path or the name of an environment
variable in addition to yes/no.
* ssh-keygen(1): add a new signature operations "find-principals" to
look up the principal associated with a signature from an allowed-
signers file.
* sshd(8): expose the number of currently-authenticating connections
along with the MaxStartups limit in the process title visible to
"ps".
Bugfixes
--------
* sshd(8): make ClientAliveCountMax=0 have sensible semantics: it
will now disable connection killing entirely rather than the
current behaviour of instantly killing the connection after the
first liveness test regardless of success. bz2627
* sshd(8): clarify order of AllowUsers / DenyUsers vs AllowGroups /
DenyGroups in the sshd(8) manual page. bz1690
* sshd(8): better describe HashKnownHosts in the manual page. bz2560
* sshd(8): clarify that that permitopen=/PermitOpen do no name or
address translation in the manual page. bz3099
* sshd(8): allow the UpdateHostKeys feature to function when
multiple known_hosts files are in use. When updating host keys,
ssh will now search subsequent known_hosts files, but will add
updated host keys to the first specified file only. bz2738
* All: replace all calls to signal(2) with a wrapper around
sigaction(2). This wrapper blocks all other signals during the
handler preventing races between handlers, and sets SA_RESTART
which should reduce the potential for short read/write operations.
* sftp(1): fix a race condition in the SIGCHILD handler that could
turn in to a kill(-1); bz3084
* sshd(8): fix a case where valid (but extremely large) SSH channel
IDs were being incorrectly rejected. bz3098
* ssh(1): when checking host key fingerprints as answers to new
hostkey prompts, ignore whitespace surrounding the fingerprint
itself.
* All: wait for file descriptors to be readable or writeable during
non-blocking connect, not just readable. Prevents a timeout when
the server doesn't immediately send a banner (e.g. multiplexers
like sslh)
* sshd_config(5): document the sntrup4591761x25519-sha512@tinyssh.org
key exchange algorithm. PR#151
christos