Call for testing: OpenSSH 8.1

Tue Oct 1 21:33:43 AEST 2019

Hi,

OpenSSH 8.1p1 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(1), sshd(8), ssh-agent(1): add protection for private keys at
   rest in RAM against speculation and memory sidechannel attacks like
   Spectre, Meltdown and Rambleed. This release encrypts private keys
   when they are not in use with a symmetic key that is derived from a
   relatively large "prekey" consisting of random data (currently 16KB).
   Attackers must recover the entire prekey before they are able to
   decrypt the protected private keys, but the current generation of
   attacks have bit error rates that render this unlikely to be
   practical.

Potentially-incompatible changes
================================

This release includes one change that may affect existing
configurations:

 * ssh-keygen(1): when acting as a CA and signing certificates with
   an RSA key, default to using the rsa-sha2-512 signature algorithm.
   Certificates signed by RSA keys will therefore be incompatible
   with OpenSSH versions prior to 7.2 unless the default is
   overridden (using "ssh-keygen -t ssh-rsa -s ...").

Changes since OpenSSH 8.0
=========================

This release is focused on bugfixing.

New Features
------------

 * ssh(1): Allow %n to be expanded in ProxyCommand strings

 * ssh(1), sshd(8): Allow prepending a list of algorithms to the
   default set by starting the list with the '^' character, E.g.
   "HostKeyAlgorithms ^ssh-ed25519"

 * ssh-keygen(1): add an experimental lightweight signature and
   verification ability. Signatures may be made using regular ssh keys
   held on disk or stored in a ssh-agent and verified against an
   authorized_keys-like list of allowed keys. Signatures embed a
   namespace that prevents confusion and attacks between different
   usage domains (e.g. files vs email).

 * ssh-keygen(1): print key comment when extracting publc key from a
   private key.  bz#3052

 * ssh-keygen(1): accept the verbose flag when searching for host keys
   in known hosts (i.e. "ssh-keygen -vF host") to print the matching
   host's random-art signature too. bz#3003

 * All: support PKCS8 as an optional format for storage of private
   keys to disk.  The OpenSSH native key format remains the default,
   but PKCS8 is a superior format to PEM if interoperability with
   non-OpenSSH software is required, as it may use a less insecure
   key derivation function than PEM's.

Bugfixes
--------

 * ssh(1): if a PKCS#11 token returns no keys then try to login and
   refetch them. Based on patch from Jakub Jelen; bz#2430

 * ssh(1): produce a useful error message if the user's shell is set
   incorrectly during "match exec" processing. bz#2791

 * sftp(1): allow the maximimum uint32 value for the argument passed
   to -b which allows better error messages from later validation.
   bz#3050

 * ssh(1): avoid pledge sandbox violations in some combinations of
   remote forwarding, connection multiplexing and ControlMaster.

 * ssh-keyscan(1): include SHA2-variant RSA key algorithms in KEX
   proposal; allows ssh-keyscan to harvest keys from servers that
   disable olde SHA1 ssh-rsa. bz#3029

 * sftp(1): print explicit "not modified" message if a file was
   requested for resumed download but was considered already complete.
   bz#2978

 * sftp(1): fix a typo and make <esc><right> move right to the
   closest end of a word just like <esc><left> moves left to the
   closest beginning of a word.

 * sshd(8): cap the number of permiopen/permitlisten directives
   allowed to appear on a single authorized_keys line.

 * All: fix a number of memory leaks (one-off or on exit paths).

 * Regression tests: a number of fixes and improvments, including
   fixes to the interop tests, adding the ability to run most tests
   on builds that disable OpenSSL support, better support for running
   tests under Valgrind and a number of bugfixes.

 * ssh(1), sshd(8): check for convtime() refusing to accept times that
   resolve to LONG_MAX Reported by Kirk Wolf bz2977

 * ssh(1): slightly more instructive error message when the user
   specifies multiple -J options on the commandline. bz3015

 * ssh-agent(1): process agent requests for RSA certificate private
   keys using correct signature algorithm when requested. bz3016

 * sftp(1): check for user at host when parsing sftp target. This
   allows user@[1.2.3.4] to work without a path.  bz#2999

 * sshd(8): enlarge format buffer size for certificate serial
   number so the log message can record any 64-bit integer without
   truncation. bz#3012

 * sshd(8): for PermitOpen violations add the remote host and port to
   be able to more easily ascertain the source of the request. Add the
   same logging for PermitListen violations which where not previously
   logged at all.

 * scp(1), sftp(1): use the correct POSIX format style for left
   justification for the transfer progress meter. bz#3002

 * sshd(8) when examining a configureation using sshd -T, assume any
   attibute not provided by -C does not match, which allows it to work
   when sshd_config contains a Match directive with or without -C.
   bz#2858

 * ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1): downgrade PKCS#11 "provider returned no
   slots" warning from log level error to debug. This is common when
   attempting to enumerate keys on smartcard readers with no cards
   plugged in. bz#3058

 * ssh(1), ssh-keygen(1): do not unconditionally log in to PKCS#11
   tokens. Avoids spurious PIN prompts for keys not selected for
   authentication in ssh(1) and when listing public keys available in
   a token using ssh-keygen(1). bz#3006

Portability
-----------

 * ssh(1): fix SIGWINCH delivery of Solaris for multiplexed sessions
   bz#3030

 * ssh(1), sshd(8): fix typo that prevented detection of Linux VRF

 * sshd(8): add no-op implementation of pam_putenv to avoid build
   breakage on platforms where the PAM implementation lacks this
   function (e.g. HP-UX). bz#3008

 * sftp-server(8): fix Solaris privilege sandbox from preventing
   the legacy sftp rename operation from working (was refusing to
   allow hard links to files owned by other users). bz#3036

 * All: add a proc_pidinfo()-based closefrom() for OS X to avoid
   the need to brute-force close all high-numbered file descriptors.
   bz#3049

 * sshd(8): in the Linux seccomp-bpf sandbox, allow mprotect(2) with
   PROT_(READ|WRITE|NONE) only. This syscall is used by some hardened
   heap allocators. Github PR#142

 * sshd(8): in the Linux seccomp-bpf sandbox, allow the s390-specific
   ioctl for ecc hardware support.

 * All: use "doc" man page format if the mandoc(1) tool is present on
   the system. Previously configure would not select the "doc" man
   page format if mandoc was present but nroff was not.

 * sshd(8): don't install duplicate STREAMS modules on Solaris; check
   if STREAMS modules are already installed on a pty before installing
   since when compiling with XPG>=4 they will likely be installed
   already. Prevents hangs and duplicate lines on the terminal.
   bz#2945 and bz#2998,

Reporting Bugs:
===============

- Please read http://www.openssh.com/report.html
  Security bugs should be reported directly to openssh at openssh.com

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.