SSH Piper

SSh Piper works as a proxy-like ware, and route connections by username, src ip , etc.

+---------+                      +------------------+          +-----------------+
|         |                      |                  |          |                 |
|   Bob   +----ssh -l bob----+   |   SSH Piper   +------------->   Bob' machine  |
|         |                  |   |               |  |          |                 |
+---------+                  |   |               |  |          +-----------------+
                             +---> pipe-by-name--+  |                             
+---------+                  |   |               |  |          +-----------------+
|         |                  |   |               |  |          |                 |
|  Alice  +----ssh -l alice--+   |               +------------->  Alice' machine |
|         |                      |                  |          |                 |
+---------+                      +------------------+          +-----------------+

Install

go get github.com/tg123/sshpiper/sshpiperd
go install github.com/tg123/sshpiper/sshpiperd

Quick start

Just run showme.sh in sshpiperd exmaple directory

$GOPATH/src/github.com/tg123/sshpiper/sshpiperd/example/showme.sh

the example script will setup a sshpiper server using

ssh 127.0.0.1 -p 2222 -l github # connect to github.com:22
ssh 127.0.0.1 -p 2222 -l linode # connect to lish-atlanta.linode.com:22

connect to linode

$ ssh 0 -p 2222 -l linode.com:22
linode@0's password:

connect to github.com:22

$ ssh 0 -p 2222 -l github
Permission denied (publickey).

Configuration

$ sshpiperd -h
  -h=false: Print help and exit
  -i="/etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key": Key file for SSH Piper
  -l="0.0.0.0": Listening Address
  -p=2222: Listening Port
  -w="/var/sshpiper": Working Dir

Files inside Working Dir

Working Dir is a /home-like directory. SSHPiperd read files from workingdir/[username]/ to know upstream's configuration.

e.g.

workingdir tree

.
├── github
│   └── sshpiper_upstream
└── linode
    └── sshpiper_upstream

when ssh sshpiper_host -l github, sshpiper reads workingdir/github/sshpiper_upstream and the connect to the upstream.

User files

• sshpiper_upstream

  one line file upstream_host:port e.g. github.com:22

• authorized_keys

  OpenSSH format authorized_keys (see ~/.ssh/authorized_keys). Used for publickey sign again(see below).

• id_rsa

  RSA key for publickey sign again(see below).

Publickey sign again

During SSH publickey auth, RFC 4252 Section 7, ssh client sign session_id and some other data using private key into a signature sig. This is for server to verify that the connection is from the client not the man in the middle.

However, sshpiper actually holds two ssh connection, and it is doing what the man in the middle does. the two ssh connections' session_id will never be the same, because they are hash of the shared secret. RFC 4253 Section 6.6.

To support publickey auth, sshpiper will modify the sig using a private key (id_rsa) in the workingdir/[username]/.

How this work

+------------+        +------------------------+                       
|            |        |                        |                       
|   client   |        |   SSH Piper            |                       
|   PK_X     +-------->      |                 |                       
|            |        |      v                 |                       
|            |        |   Check PK_X           |                       
+------------+        |   in authorized_keys   |                       
                      |      |                 |                       
                      |      |                 |     +----------------+
                      |      v                 |     |                |
                      |   sign agian           |     |   server       |
                      |   using PK_Y  +-------------->   check PK_Y   |
                      |                        |     |                |
                      |                        |     |                |
                      +------------------------+     +----------------+

e.g.

on client

ssh-copy-id -i PK_X test@sshpiper

on ssh piper server

ln -s ~test/.ssh/authorized_keys workingdir/test/authorized_keys
ssh-keygen -N '' -f workingdir/test/id_rsa  # this is PK_Y
ssh-copy-id -i workingdir/test/id_rsa test@server

now ssh test@sshpiper -i -i PK_X, sshpiper will send PK_Y to server instead of PK_X.