Git keeping key

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.