sshd started on boot

[Claude Heiland-Allen]

sshd is started on boot, which is a big security problem with the known livecd user/pass

[agagag (anton)]

the cutest fix for this is to add the /etc/ssh/sshd_not_to_be_run file. This will disable sshd and let you know when the service starts like so:

 sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart
 * Restarting OpenBSD Secure Shell server sshd [ OK ]
 * OpenBSD Secure Shell server not in use (/etc/ssh/sshd_not_to_be_run)

easy to change back by removing this file.

[Aymeric Mansoux (aymeric)]

hey did not know this one!
cute :)

[Grant Centauri (gcentauri)]

this is cute, but would there be a way to add a comment to the /etc/ssh/sshd_not_to_be_run file?

i was able to get far enough to discover this file, but had no idea what to do with it.

would it be possible to write a script to easily undo this and start up ssh?

something like:

sudo su
rm /etc/ssh/sshd_not_to_be_run
/etc/init.d/ssh start

?

[danstowell (danstowell)]

Hi Grant - Good suggestion, but I think it's probably something best solved by documentation rather than a script. (I generally don't like the idea of installing a script with "sudo rm" in it ;)

So I've written this documentation page:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Puredyne/SSH_into_your_Puredyne_system

Seems OK? Please feel free to edit that page if you can make it better!

[Grant Centauri (gcentauri)]

You're right about the script. I thought of that a few hours later. Somewhat dangerous.

The documentation looked perfect, covered everything and more!

I still think maybe a comment in the file describing what it is might be helpful too. I opened it in nano when I found it to try and see what it did, but it was just empty.

Thanks.

[danstowell (danstowell)]

ok done, thanks