Linux – SFTP with chroot depending on public key of connecting user

freebsdlinuxsftpsshssh-keys

I want to build a server (running Debian or FreeBSD) that receives backups from different clients via sshfs. Each client should be able to read and write its own backup data, but not the data of any of the other clients.

I had the following idea: each client connects via public key auth to backup@backupserver.local. The user backup has a special authorized_keys file, like this:

command="internal-sftp" chroot="/backup/client-1/data" ssh-rsa (key1)
command="internal-sftp" chroot="/backup/client-2/data" ssh-rsa (key2)
command="internal-sftp" chroot="/backup/client-3/data" ssh-rsa (key3)
etc...

The advantage of this would be that I would not need to use a separate user for every client, and I could easily autogenerate the authorized_keys file with a script.

There is just one problem: the chroot=... does not work. OpenSSH's authorized_keys file does not seem to have an equivalent for ChrootDirectory (which works in /etc/ssh/sshd_config, either globally or in a Match User block).

Is there a reasonably simple way to accomplish what I want using OpenSSH? Maybe using the command=... directive in a clever way?
Alternatively, are there other SFTP servers that can do what I want?

EDIT: To make it more clear what I want to achieve: I want several clients to be able to store files on my server. Each client should not be able to see any other client's files. And I do not want to litter my server with dozens of user accounts, so I'd like an easily manageable solution for the clients to share a user account and still have no access to eachother's files.

Best Answer

Alternatively, are there other SFTP servers that can do what I want?

yes, you can use proftpd

Prepare user environment. With ProFTPD there is no need to give to user a valid shell.

# useradd -m -d /vhosts/backup/user1/ -s /sbin/nologin user1
# passwd --lock user1
Locking password for user user1.
passwd: Success

# mkdir /vhosts/backup/user1/.sftp/
# touch /vhosts/backup/user1/.sftp/authorized_keys

# chown -R user1:user1 /vhosts/backup/user1/
# chmod -R 700 /vhosts/backup/user1/

In order to use OpenSSH public keys in a SFTPAuthorizedUserKeys, you must convert them to the RFC4716 format. You can do this with ssh-keygen tool:

# ssh-keygen -e -f user1.public.key > /vhosts/backup/user1/.sftp/authorized_keys

Setup ProFTPD

ServerName "ProFTPD Default Installation"
ServerType standalone
DefaultServer off

LoadModule mod_tls.c
LoadModule mod_sftp.c
LoadModule mod_rewrite.c

TLSProtocol TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2

# Disable default ftp server
Port 0

UseReverseDNS off
IdentLookups off

# Umask 022 is a good standard umask to prevent new dirs and files
# from being group and world writable.
Umask 022

# PersistentPasswd causes problems with NIS/LDAP.
PersistentPasswd off

MaxInstances 30

# Set the user and group under which the server will run.
User nobody
Group nobody

# Normally, we want files to be overwriteable.
AllowOverwrite                  on

TimesGMT off
SetEnv TZ :/etc/localtime

<VirtualHost sftp.example.net>
    ServerName "SFTP: Backup server."
    DefaultRoot ~
    Umask 002
    Port 2121

    RootRevoke on

    SFTPEngine on
    SFTPLog /var/log/proftpd/sftp.log

    SFTPHostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
    SFTPHostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
    SFTPDHParamFile /etc/pki/proftpd/dhparam_2048.pem
    SFTPAuthorizedUserKeys file:~/.sftp/authorized_keys

    SFTPCompression delayed
    SFTPAuthMethods publickey
</VirtualHost>

<Global>
    RequireValidShell off
    AllowOverwrite yes

    DenyFilter \*.*/

    <Limit SITE_CHMOD>
        DenyAll
    </Limit>
</Global>

LogFormat default "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %s %b"
LogFormat auth    "%v [%P] %h %t \"%r\" %s"
ExtendedLog /var/log/proftpd/access.log read,write

Create DH (Diffie-Hellman ) group parameters.

# openssl dhparam -out /etc/pki/proftpd/dhparam_2048.pem 2048

Configure any SFTP client. I have used FileZilla

FileZilla SFTP server settings

If you run ProFPTD in debug mode

# proftpd -n -d 3

In the console you will see something like the following

2016-02-21 22:12:48,275 sftp.example.net proftpd[50511]: using PCRE 7.8 2008-09-05
2016-02-21 22:12:48,279 sftp.example.net proftpd[50511]: mod_sftp/0.9.9: using OpenSSL 1.0.1e-fips 11 Feb 2013
2016-02-21 22:12:48,462 sftp.example.net proftpd[50511] sftp.example.net: set core resource limits for daemon
2016-02-21 22:12:48,462 sftp.example.net proftpd[50511] sftp.example.net: ProFTPD 1.3.5a (maint) (built Sun Feb 21 2016 21:22:00 UTC) standalone mode STARTUP
2016-02-21 22:12:59,780 sftp.example.net proftpd[50512] sftp.example.net (192.168.1.2[192.168.1.2]): mod_cap/1.1: adding CAP_SETUID and CAP_SETGID capabilities
2016-02-21 22:12:59,780 sftp.example.net proftpd[50512] sftp.example.net (192.168.1.2[192.168.1.2]): SSH2 session opened.
2016-02-21 22:12:59,863 sftp.example.net proftpd[50512] sftp.example.net (192.168.1.2[192.168.1.2]): Preparing to chroot to directory '/vhosts/backup/user1'
2016-02-21 22:12:59,863 sftp.example.net proftpd[50512] sftp.example.net (192.168.1.2[192.168.1.2]): Environment successfully chroot()ed
2016-02-21 22:12:59,863 sftp.example.net proftpd[50512] sftp.example.net (192.168.1.2[192.168.1.2]): USER user1: Login successful

And the follwoing lines in a /var/log/sftp.log

2016-02-21 22:12:48,735 mod_sftp/0.9.9[50309]: sending acceptable userauth methods: publickey
2016-02-21 22:12:48,735 mod_sftp/0.9.9[50309]: public key MD5 fingerprint: c2:2f:a3:93:59:5d:e4:38:99:4b:fd:b1:6e:fc:54:6c
2016-02-21 22:12:48,735 mod_sftp/0.9.9[50309]: sending publickey OK
2016-02-21 22:12:59,789 mod_sftp/0.9.9[50309]: public key MD5 fingerprint: c2:2f:a3:93:59:5d:e4:38:99:4b:fd:b1:6e:fc:54:6c
2016-02-21 22:12:59,790 mod_sftp/0.9.9[50309]: sending userauth success
2016-02-21 22:12:59,790 mod_sftp/0.9.9[50309]: user 'user1' authenticated via 'publickey' method

P.S.

The configured path for a file containing authorized keys (SFTPAuthorizedUserKeys) can use the %u variable, which will be interpolated with the name of the user being authenticated. This feature supports having per-user files of authorized keys that reside in a central location, rather than requiring (or allowing) users to manage their own authorized keys. For example:

SFTPAuthorizedUserKeys file:/etc/sftp/authorized_keys/%u

I want several clients to be able to store files on my server. Each client should not be able to see any other client's files. And I do not want to litter my server with dozens of user accounts, so I'd like an easily manageable solution for the clients to share a user account and still have no access to eachother's files.

with ProFTPD it's possible too. You just need a little modify my initial configuration

<VirtualHost sftp.example.net>
    ...   
    SFTPAuthorizedUserKeys file:/etc/proftpd/sftp_authorized_keys
    AuthUserFile /etc/proftpd/sftp_users.passwd

    CreateHome on 0700 dirmode 0700 uid 99 gid 99

    RewriteHome on
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteLog /var/log/proftpd/rewrite.log
    RewriteCondition %m REWRITE_HOME
    RewriteRule (.*) /vhosts/backup/%u
</VirtualHost>

And create one virtual account

# ftpasswd --passwd --file /etc/proftpd/sftp_users.passwd --sha512 --gid 99 --uid 99 --shell /sbin/nologin --name user1 --home /vhosts/backup

That's all. For every additional account all you need is to add his public key to the /etc/proftpd/sftp_authorized_keys

Note: the file must contain new line in the end! It's important.

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