[scponly] sFTP/scponly stopped working

mephi matthew.j.green at ntlworld.com
Thu Jun 21 12:16:21 EDT 2007


I've removed the SUID bit, as that didn't fix things (and I've heard it can
be dangerous)

Su-ing to the user and running "ls -l" on the directories returns values for
all of them, they are all set to 755 permissions.

I didn't build the scponly binary, it was got from the Debian repository
with apt-get.

Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: Kaleb Pederson [mailto:kibab at icehouse.net] 
Sent: 21 June 2007 04:29
To: mephi
Cc: scponly at lists.ccs.neu.edu; Paul Hyder
Subject: Re: [scponly] sFTP/scponly stopped working

On Wednesday 20 June 2007, Paul Hyder wrote:
> Permissions of 755 are all that is necessary.  (!ABSOLUTELY avoid SUID!)

By setting sftp-server SUID root, you effectively give root permissions to 
every user -- which is hardly what you want.

> This is a failure of the exec of the sftp-server, looks like it isn't
> permissions.  (Assumes the directories are also r_x for this user.)

As Paul just pointed out, the permissions on all of the folders up to the 
sftp-server must grant that user access.

On many Linux machines, you can verify this by su'ing to the user in
question 
as follows:

su -s /bin/sh <user>

Once you've done that, you should be able to check the permissions on each 
folder in the hierarchy.  For example,

ls -l /share/adellion/usr/lib/sftp-server
ls -l /share/adellion/usr/lib
ls -l /share/adellion/usr

The first one that works is the first directory that has correct
permissions.

I hope that clarifies things a bit.

--Kaleb


> What options were specified when the scponly build was configured?
>    Paul Hyder
>
> mephi wrote:
> > Thanks for the quick reply.
> > I've dug a bit deeper, but not solved it yet.
> >
> > I've set /share/adellion/usr/lib/sftp-server permissions to be 777 just
> > to check that, and it's still giving the same error.
> >
> > I've read some things that have talked about the SUID bit, so I tried
> > setting that with permissions 4777. (I think that's how you do it)
> >
> > I then noticed that /share/adellion/usr/lib/sftp-server was different to
> > /usr/lib/sftp-server, which is symlinked from
> > /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server so I've tried copying the new sftp-server
> > over and setting the permissions on that to 4777 or 777, neither of
which
> > had any effect.
> >
> > Matt
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Paul Hyder [mailto:Paul.Hyder at noaa.gov]
> > Sent: 20 June 2007 18:56
> > To: mephi
> > Cc: scponly at lists.ccs.neu.edu
> > Subject: Re: [scponly] sFTP/scponly stopped working
> >
> > This indicates that there is something wrong with either the binary or
> > the permissions that keep the user from executing
> > /share/adellion/usr/lib/sftp-server
> >
> > Something changed there?
> >    Paul Hyder
> >    NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Global Systems Division
> >    Boulder, CO
> >
> > mephi wrote:
> >> I've had my sFTP server running for a while now, it's setup it's setup
> >
> > with
> >
> >> scponly so a single group of users all have access to a single
> >> directory,
> >
> > so
> >
> >> it's working as a classic, but more secure, FTP server.
> >>
> >> I'm running Debian stable, and although I have upgraded from Sarge to
> >
> > Etch,
> >
> >> I'm pretty sure that didn't coincide with this error.
> >>
> >> My users started complaining of an "error 13" about a week ago, which
> >> was stopping them logging in. They almost exclusively use Winscp.
> >>
> >> I've upped the debug level to get more information, and the auth.log
> >> shows the following:
> >>
> >> Jun 20 17:28:05 mephi-linux sshd[11987]: Connection from 192.168.0.254
> >
> > port
> >
> >> 1587
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux sshd[11987]: Accepted
> >> keyboard-interactive/pam for matt123 from 192.168.0.254 port 1587 ssh2
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux sshd[11990]: (pam_unix) session opened for
> >
> > user
> >
> >> matt123 by (uid=0)
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux sshd[11990]: subsystem request for sftp
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: chrooted binary in place, will
> >
> > chroot()
> >
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: 3 arguments in total.
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: ^Iarg 0 is scponlyc
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: ^Iarg 1 is -c
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: ^Iarg 2 is /usr/lib/sftp-server
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: opened log at LOG_AUTHPRIV, opts
> >> 0x00000009
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: retrieved home directory of
> >> "/share/adellion" for user "matt123"
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: chrooting to dir:
"/share/adellion"
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: chdiring to dir: "/"
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: setting uid to 1003
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: processing request:
> >> "/usr/lib/sftp-server"
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: set HOME environment variable to
> >> HOME=/share/adellion (username: matt123(1003), IP/port: 192.168.0.254
> >> 1587 22))
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: running: /usr/lib/sftp-server
> >> (username: matt123(1003), IP/port: 192.168.0.254 1587 22)
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux [11991]: failed: /usr/lib/sftp-server with
> >
> > error
> >
> >> Permission denied(13) (username: matt123(1003), IP/port: 192.168.0.254
> >
> > 1587
> >
> >> 22)
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux sshd[11990]: Connection closed by
> >
> > 192.168.0.254
> >
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux sshd[11990]: (pam_unix) session closed for
> >
> > user
> >
> >> matt123
> >> Jun 20 17:28:06 mephi-linux sshd[11990]: Closing connection to
> >
> > 192.168.0.254
> >
> >> And now I'm a bit stuck.
> >>
> >> Any ideas?
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >>
> >> Matt
> >>
> >>
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> >
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