On Mon, Jan 27, 2003, Vinod Kutty wrote:

> 
> Just a suggestion:
> 
> Would it make sense to have the default, out-of-the-box config of
> openssh's sshd_config use these options:
> 
> UsePrivilegeSeparation   yes (current default = no)
> PermitRootLogin          no  (current default = yes)
> 
> in order to make the default config a little more "secure" (whatever that
> means 8-) )?
> 
> Currently, the openpkg 1.1.x and 1.2 packaging of openssh 3.4p1 and 3.5p1
> use the above defaults in parentheses. The vanilla openssh appears to set
> "UsePrivilegeSeparation yes".
> 
We tried using "UsePrivilegeSeparation" (see
http://cvs.openpkg.org/chngview?cn=3611) when there was a strong urge
improving OpenSSH in March and June 2002 (see
http://www.openpkg.org/security/OpenPKG-SA-2002.002-openssh.html and
http://www.openpkg.org/security/OpenPKG-SA-2002.005-openssh.html)
However, we had to find out that this new feature was incompatible with
compression on some and PAM on all platforms, so we reverted back to the
old fashion way (see http://cvs.openpkg.org/chngview?cn=3718). You can
easily find more details by having a look at the timeline of
openssh.spec (see
http://cvs.openpkg.org/rlog?f=openpkg-src/openssh/openssh.spec).  When
we did research on using that new  feature we had to find out it breaks
the OpenPKG design goal of supporting different UNIX flavours equally. I
do not currently believe it's time for another try, but we'll watch that
issue.

Regarding "PermitRootLogin" you're right. The OpenPKG default comes from
the fact that the origin of OpenPKG is a ISP environment where OpenSSH
is usually installed for remotely manage machines and this is mostly
done (or started and then "su - cw" :-) using the root account. If we
change that default, we would have to manually do that configuration on
every installation. However, it seems Ralf already made the decision to
follow your suggestion.

--
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