Enabling SSH, su from root and Visual Studio Code Remote SSH for System Users under GridPane

This page has had its content updated on September 21, 2023 EDT by Jordan

Allowing SSH Access to GridPane System Users

If you’re looking to give a developer or user access to SSH instead of the default SCP-only that GridPane institutes for each system user. Then you will need to follow these instructions.

Step 1 – Removing SFTP Restriction Configuration

GridPane restricts users to only SCP connections by using the sshd configuration “ForceCommand”. Furthermore, to restrict access to files outside of the system users’ home directory, the sshd configuration option “ChrootDirectory” is used.

The configuration is within /etc/ssh/sshd_config, and below is an example

#CONFIG FOR USER=wpinfo
Match User wpinfo
        ForceCommand internal-sftp
        ChrootDirectory /home/wpinfo
        PasswordAuthentication yes
        X11Forwarding no
        AllowTcpForwarding no
#ENDCONFIG FOR USER=wpinfo

You can simply comment out the “ForceCommand internal-sftp” option on line 3 or remove the configuration for the entire user. And then restart ssh by typing the following.

systemctl restart ssh

Step 2 – Removing Chroot Configuration

If you now try to log in via SSH as a system user, you will be greeted with the following error.

Last login: Wed Mar 25 04:14:22 2020 from 1.1.1.1
/bin/bash: No such file or directory
Connection to srv01.managingwp.io closed.

This is because when you log in as a GridPane system user, you’re chrooted into your home directory. You can read more about chroot, how to set it up and extend it further at https://www.tecmint.com/restrict-ssh-user-to-directory-using-chrooted-jail/

We can comment out or remove line 4 within the sshd config for the specific system user. Eventually, the configuration file looks like this if you also previously removed the SFTP restriction configuration in this article (line 3).

#CONFIG FOR USER=wpinfo
Match User wpinfo
#        ForceCommand internal-sftp
#        ChrootDirectory /home/wpinfo
        PasswordAuthentication yes
        X11Forwarding no
        AllowTcpForwarding no
#ENDCONFIG FOR USER=wpinfo

Step 3 – Enabling Visual Studio Code Remote SSH

If you’re using Visual Studio Code Remote SSH extension.

Remote – SSH – Visual Studio Marketplace

Extension for Visual Studio Code – Open any folder on a remote machine using SSH and take advantage of VS Code’s full feature set.

marketplace.visualstudio.com

You will need to uncomment an additional line to be able to utilize this Visual Studio code extension. The Remote SSH extension for Visual Studio Code utilizes SSH Forwarding, which is disabled by default for GridPane system users. So uncomment AllowTcpForwarding no like so

#CONFIG FOR USER=wpinfo
Match User wpinfo
#        ForceCommand internal-sftp
#        ChrootDirectory /home/wpinfo
        PasswordAuthentication yes
        X11Forwarding no
#        AllowTcpForwarding no
#ENDCONFIG FOR USER=wpinfo

Step 4 – Restart the SSH daemon.

You need to restart the SSH daemon for the changes to take effect.

systemctl restart ssh

Now you should be able to use Putty or ssh command to login as the system user without any issues. Until you want to create files in your home folder, that’s another issue.

Allowing SU to User from Root

If you’ve ever tried to ‘su -‘ into a GridPane system user, you’ll see the following error. Sometimes this is all I do from the root user versus logging into each individual user. I will explain my reasoning one day. If you want to SSH into a GridPane system user, I’ve added it to the end of this article.

❯ su - user
Cannot execute /bin/bash: Permission denied

Step 1 – Checking ACL restrictions on /bin

The main reason you’re having the issue above is an ACL permission that was added to /bin and /dev that restricts you from starting a shell within /bin or accessing /dev. The latter is more of an annoyance each time you run a command, so I thought I would add it in. This is due to /bin being restricted by an ACL

❯ getfacl /bin
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: bin
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rwx
group::r-x
group:GridPane-System-Users:r--
mask::r-x
other::r-x

Step 2 – Remove ACL on /bin

You can remove the ACL, and then you should be able to log in via SSH to the system user and run “su – user” as root to impersonate a system user.

setfacl -x group:GridPane-System-Users /bin

Step 3 – Removing ACL Permissions on /dev

You may also warnings about /dev, there is also an acl placed on /dev

setfacl -x group:GridPane-System-Users /dev

Updating Home Directory Permission

So you can SSH in as a GridPane system user, but you can’t create files in your home directory. This isn’t too bad, but we want to create and modify files in our home directory.

Step 1 – Check System Users Home Directory

Simply change the ownership of the GridPane system users’ home directory as root. Here’s an example of what it will look like by default, the user and group root have ownership.

root@srv01:/home# ls -al
total 84
drwxr-xr-x+ 21 root               root               4096 Mar 12 17:27 .
drwxr-xr-x  23 root               root               4096 Mar 20 02:00 ..
drwxr-xr-x   4 root               root               4096 Mar 17 17:22 wpinfo

Step 2 – Update System Users Ownership

So let’s change the ownership to the GridPane system user and group to wpinfo from root.

root@srv01:/home# chown wpinfo:wpinfo wpinfo

Now you shouldn’t have any issues with writing to your home directory.

Fixing Permissions on /home

There are also improper permissions on /home; it’s owned by root:root

❯ ls -al
total 80K
drwxr-xr-x+ 20 root               root               4096 Feb 26 16:59 .
drwxr-xr-x  23 root               root               4096 Feb 21 02:00 ..
drwxr-xr-x   4 root               root               4096 Dec 17 02:07 site

You need to chown the folder as the system user.

chown site:site site

Securing SSH

The changes above lessen security. However, you can look into using rbash

How To Limit User’s Access To The Linux System – OSTechNix

Using Restricted Shell, we can easily limit user’s access to the linux system. Just put them in restricted shell, so they can able to execute only few commands.

www.ostechnix.com

There are other methods available, such as building each user their own chroot environment. But that can become cumbersome.

Restrict SSH User Access to Home Directory Using Chrooted Jail

In this article, we will explain to you how to restrict SSH user access to a specific directory using chrooted jail in Linux systems.

www.tecmint.com

Updates

• 08-25-2023 – Updated article to include how to enable Visual Studio Code Remote SSH Extension.