How SSH(secure shell) works

How SSH Works

When you connect through SSH, you will be dropped into a shell session, which is a text-based interface where you can interact with your server. For the duration of your SSH session, any commands that you type into your local terminal are sent through an encrypted SSH tunnel and executed on your server.
The SSH connection is implemented using a client-server model. This means that for an SSH connection to be established, the remote machine must be running a piece of software called an SSH daemon. This software listens for connections on a specific network port, authenticates connection requests, and spawns the appropriate environment if the user provides the correct credentials.
The user's computer must have an SSH client. This is a piece of software that knows how to communicate using the SSH protocol and can be given information about the remote host to connect to, the username to use, and the credentials that should be passed to authenticate. The client can also specify certain details about the connection type they would like to establish.

How SSH Authenticates Users

Clients generally authenticate either using passwords (less secure and not recommended) or SSH keys, which are very secure.

Password logins are encrypted and are easy to understand for new users. However, automated bots and malicious users will often repeatedly try to authenticate to accounts that allow password-based logins, which can lead to security compromises. For this reason, we recommend always setting up SSH-based authentication for most configurations.

SSH keys are a matching set of cryptographic keys which can be used for authentication. Each set contains a public and a private key. The public key can be shared freely without concern, while the private key must be vigilantly guarded and never exposed to anyone.

To authenticate using SSH keys, a user must have an SSH key pair on their local computer. On the remote server, the public key must be copied to a file within the user's home directory at~/.ssh/authorized_keys. This file contains a list of public keys, one-per-line, that are authorized to log into this account.

When a client connects to the host, wishing to use SSH key authentication, it will inform the server of this intent and will tell the server which public key to use. The server then check its authorized_keys file for the public key, generate a random string and encrypts it using the public key. This encrypted message can only be decrypted with the associated private key. The server will send this encrypted message to the client to test whether they actually have the associated private key.

Upon receipt of this message, the client will decrypt it using the private key and combine the random string that is revealed with a previously negotiated session ID. It then generates an MD5 hash of this value and transmits it back to the server. The server already had the original message and the session ID, so it can compare an MD5 hash generated by those values and determine that the client must have the private key.

Now that you know how SSH works, we can begin to discuss some examples to demonstrate different ways of working with SSH

Generating and Working with SSH Keys

This section will cover how to generate SSH keys on a client machine and distribute the public key to servers where they should be used. This is a good section to start with if you have not previously generated keys due to the increased security that it allows for future connections.

Generating an SSH Key Pair

Generating a new SSH public and private key pair on your local computer is the first step towards authenticating with a remote server without a password. Unless there is a good reason not to, you should always authenticate using SSH keys.

A number cryptographic algorithms can be used to generate SSH keys, including RSA, DSA, and ECDSA. RSA keys are generally preferred and are the default key type.

To generate an RSA key pair on your local computer, type:

ssh-keygen

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/demo/.ssh/id_rsa):

This prompt allows you to choose the location to store your RSA private key. Press ENTER to leave this as the default, which will store them in the .ssh hidden directory in your user's home directory. Leaving the default location selected will allow your SSH client to find the keys automatically.

Copying your Public SSH Key to a Server Manually

If you do not have password-based SSH access available, you will have to add your public key to the remote server manually.

On your local machine, you can find the contents of your public key file by typing:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

ssh-rsa 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 demo@test

You can copy this value, and manually paste it into the appropriate location on the remote server. You will have to log into the remote server.

On the remote server, create the ~/.ssh directory if it does not already exist:

mkdir -p ~/.ssh

Afterwards, you can create or append the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file by typing:

echo public_key_string >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys