Call for testing: OpenSSH 8.4

[Hisashi T Fujinaka]

OK, NetBSD-current amd64, NetBSD-9-amd64, and NetBSD-9-i386 all pass all
tests. MacOS, well, I always try it but it has problems.

On Sun, 20 Sep 2020, Damien Miller wrote:

> Hi,
>
> OpenSSH 8.4p1 is almost ready for release, so we would appreciate testing
> on as many platforms and systems as possible. This is a bugfix release.
>
> Snapshot releases for portable OpenSSH are available from
> http://www.mindrot.org/openssh_snap/
>
> The OpenBSD version is available in CVS HEAD:
> http://www.openbsd.org/anoncvs.html
>
> Portable OpenSSH is also available via git using the
> instructions at http://www.openssh.com/portable.html#cvs
> At https://anongit.mindrot.org/openssh.git/ or via a mirror at Github:
> https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable
>
> Running the regression tests supplied with Portable OpenSSH does not
> require installation and is a simply:
>
> $ ./configure && make tests
>
> Live testing on suitable non-production systems is also appreciated.
> Please send reports of success or failure to
> openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org. Security bugs should be reported
> directly to openssh at openssh.com.
>
> Below is a summary of changes. More detail may be found in the ChangeLog
> in the portable OpenSSH tarballs.
>
> Thanks to the many people who contributed to this release.
>
> Security
> ========
>
> * ssh-agent(1): restrict ssh-agent from signing web challenges for
>   FIDO/U2F keys.
>
>   When signing messages in ssh-agent using a FIDO key that has an
>   application string that does not start with "ssh:", ensure that the
>   message being signed is one of the forms expected for the SSH protocol
>   (currently public key authentication and sshsig signatures).
>
>   This prevents ssh-agent forwarding on a host that has FIDO keys
>   attached granting the ability for the remote side to sign challenges
>   for web authentication using those keys too.
>
>   Note that the converse case of web browsers signing SSH challenges is
>   already precluded because no web RP can have the "ssh:" prefix in the
>   application string that we require.
>
> * ssh-keygen(1): Enable FIDO 2.1 credProtect extension when generating
>   a FIDO resident key.
>
>   The recent FIDO 2.1 Client to Authenticator Protocol introduced a
>   "credProtect" feature to better protect resident keys. We use this
>   option to require a PIN prior to all operations that may retrieve
>   a resident key from a FIDO token.
>
> Potentially-incompatible changes
> ================================
>
> This release includes a number of changes that may affect existing
> configurations:
>
> * For FIDO/U2F support, OpenSSH recommends the use of libfido2 1.5.0
>   or greater. Older libraries have limited support at the expense of
>   disabling particular features. These include resident keys, PIN-
>   required keys and multiple attached tokens.
>
> * ssh-keygen(1): the format of the attestation information optionally
>   recorded when a FIDO key is generated has changed. It now includes
>   the authenticator data needed to validate attestation signatures.
>
> * The API between OpenSSH and the FIDO token middleware has changed
>   and the SSH_SK_VERSION_MAJOR version has been incremented as a
>   result. Third-party middleware libraries must support the current
>   API version (7) to work with OpenSSH 8.4.
>
> * The portable OpenSSH distribution now requires automake to rebuild
>   the configure script and supporting files. This is not required when
>   simply building portable OpenSSH from a release tar file.
>
> Changes since OpenSSH 8.3
> =========================
>
> New features
> ------------
>
> * ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1): support for FIDO keys that require a PIN for
>   each use. These keys may be generated using ssh-keygen using a new
>   "verify-required" option. When a PIN-required key is used, the user
>   will be prompted for a PIN to complete the signature operation.
>
> * sshd(8): authorized_keys now supports a new "verify-required"
>   option to require FIDO signatures assert that the token verified
>   that the user was present before making the signature. The FIDO
>   protocol supports multiple methods for user-verification, but
>   currently OpenSSH only supports PIN verification.
>
> * sshd(8), ssh-keygen(1): add support for verifying FIDO webauthn
>   signatures. Webauthn is a standard for using FIDO keys in web
>   browsers. These signatures are a slightly different format to plain
>   FIDO signatures and thus require explicit support.
>
> * ssh(1): allow some keywords to expand shell-style ${ENV}
>   environment variables. The supported keywords are CertificateFile,
>   ControlPath, IdentityAgent and IdentityFile, plus LocalForward and
>   RemoteForward when used for Unix domain socket paths. bz#3140
>
> * ssh(1), ssh-agent(1): allow some additional control over the use of
>   ssh-askpass via a new $SSH_ASKPASS_REQUIRE environment variable,
>   including forcibly enabling and disabling its use. bz#69
>
> * ssh(1): allow ssh_config(5)'s AddKeysToAgent keyword accept a time
>   limit for keys in addition to its current flag options. Time-
>   limited keys will automatically be removed from ssh-agent after
>   their expiry time has passed.
>
> * scp(1), sftp(1): allow the -A flag to explicitly enable agent
>   forwarding in scp and sftp. The default remains to not forward an
>   agent, even when ssh_config enables it.
>
> * ssh(1): add a '%k' TOKEN that expands to the effective HostKey of
>   the destination. This allows, e.g., keeping host keys in individual
>   files using "UserKnownHostsFile ~/.ssh/known_hosts.d/%k". bz#1654
>
> * ssh(1): add %-TOKEN, environment variable and tilde expansion to
>   the UserKnownHostsFile directive, allowing the path to be
>   completed by the configuration (e.g. bz#1654)
>
> * ssh-keygen(1): allow "ssh-add -d -" to read keys to be deleted
>   from stdin. bz#3180
>
> * sshd(8): improve logging for MaxStartups connection throttling.
>   sshd will now log when it starts and stops throttling and periodically
>   while in this state. bz#3055
>
> Bugfixes
> --------
>
> * ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1): better support for multiple attached FIDO
>   tokens. In cases where OpenSSH cannot unambiguously determine which
>   token to direct a request to, the user is now required to select a
>   token by touching it. In cases of operations that require a PIN to
>   be verified, this avoids sending the wrong PIN to the wrong token
>   and incrementing the token's PIN failure counter (tokens
>   effectively erase their keys after too many PIN failures).
>
> * sshd(8): fix Include before Match in sshd_config; bz#3122
>
> * ssh(1), sshd(8): limit the amount of channel input data buffered,
>   avoiding peers that advertise large windows but are slow to read
>   from causing high memory consumption.
>
> * ssh-agent(1): handle multiple requests sent in a single write() to
>   the agent.
>
> * sshd(8): allow sshd_config longer than 256k
>
> * sshd(8): avoid spurious "Unable to load host key" message when sshd
>   load a private key but no public counterpart
>
> * ssh(1): prefer the default hostkey algorithm list whenever we have
>   a hostkey that matches its best-preference algorithm.
>
> * sshd(1): when ordering the hostkey algorithms to request from a
>   server, prefer certificate types if the known_hosts files contain a key
>   marked as a @cert-authority; bz#3157
>
> * ssh(1): perform host key fingerprint comparisons for the "Are you
>   sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])?"
>   prompt with case sensitivity.
>
> * sshd(8): ensure that address/masklen mismatches in sshd_config
>   yield fatal errors at daemon start time rather than later when
>   they are evaluated.
>
> * ssh-keygen(1): ensure that certificate extensions are lexically
>   sorted. Previously if the user specified a custom extension then
>   the everything would be in order except the custom ones. bz#3198
>
> * ssh(1): also compare username when checking for JumpHost loops.
>   bz#3057
>
> * ssh-keygen(1): preserve group/world read permission on known_hosts
>   files across runs of "ssh-keygen -Rf /path". The old behaviour was
>   to remove all rights for group/other. bz#3146
>
> * ssh-keygen(1): Mention the [-a rounds] flag in the ssh-keygen
>   manual page and usage().
>
> * sshd(8): explicitly construct path to ~/.ssh/rc rather than
>   relying on it being relative to the current directory, so that it
>   can still be found if the shell startup changes its directory.
>   bz#3185
>
> * sshd(8): when redirecting sshd's log output to a file, undo this
>   redirection after the session child process is forked(). Fixes
>   missing log messages when using this feature under some
>   circumstances.
>
> * sshd(8): start ClientAliveInterval bookkeeping before first pass
>   through select() loop; fixed theoretical case where busy sshd may
>   ignore timeouts from client.
>
> * ssh(1): only reset the ServerAliveInterval check when we receive
>   traffic from the server and ignore traffic from a port forwarding
>   client, preventing a client from keeping a connection alive when
>   it should be terminated. bz#2265
>
> * ssh-keygen(1): avoid spurious error message when ssh-keygen
>   creates files outside ~/.ssh
>
> * sftp-client(1): fix off-by-one error that caused sftp downloads to
>   make one more concurrent request that desired. This prevented using
>   sftp(1) in unpipelined request/response mode, which is useful when
>   debugging. bz#3054
>
> * ssh(1), sshd(8): handle EINTR in waitfd() and timeout_connect()
>   helpers. bz#3071
>
> * ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1): defer creation of ~/.ssh until we attempt to
>   write to it so we don't leave an empty .ssh directory when it's not
>   needed. bz#3156
>
> * ssh(1), sshd(8): fix multiplier when parsing time specifications
>   when handling seconds after other units. bz#3171
>
> Portability
> -----------
>
> * sshd(8): always send any PAM account messages. If the PAM account
>   stack returns any messages, always send them to the user and not
>   just if the check succeeds. bz#2049
>
> * Implement some backwards compatibility for libfido2 libraries
>   older than 1.5.0. Note that use of an older library will result
>   in the loss of certain features including resident key support,
>   PIN support and support for multiple attached tokens.
>
> * configure fixes for XCode 12
>
> * gnome-ssh-askpass3: ensure the "close" button is not focused by
>   default for SSH_ASKPASS_PROMPT=none prompts. Avoids space/enter
>   accidentally dismissing FIDO touch notifications.
>
> * gnome-ssh-askpass3: allow some control over textarea colour via
>   $GNOME_SSH_ASKPASS_FG_COLOR and $GNOME_SSH_ASKPASS_BG_COLOR
>   environment variables.
>
> * sshd(8): document another PAM spec problem in a frustrated comment
>
> * sshd(8): support NetBSD's utmpx.ut_ss address field. bz#960
>
> * Add the ssh-sk-helper binary and its manpage to the RPM spec file
>
> * Detect the Frankenstein monster of Linux/X32 and allow the sandbox
>   to function there. bz#3085
>
> OpenSSH is brought to you by Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo de
> Raadt, Kevin Steves, Damien Miller, Darren Tucker, Jason McIntyre,
> Tim Rice and Ben Lindstrom.
>
> _______________________________________________
> openssh-unix-dev mailing list
> openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org
> https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev
>

-- 
Hisashi T Fujinaka - htodd at twofifty.com
BSEE + BSChem + BAEnglish + MSCS + $2.50 = coffee