To mitigate the effort to maintain my personal server, I am considering to only expose ssh port to the outside and use its socks proxy to reach other services. is Portknocking enough to reduce surface of attack to the minimum?

  • dalz@fedi.alsd.eu
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    Why disallow root login? I always need root when I connect, and stealing the password by aliasing sudo/doas is trivial. It seems to me it would just make life harder for no benefit.

    • this_is_router@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      31
      ·
      1 year ago

      Because then:

      • you also need to know the correct username
      • audits and logging shows which user used sudo to gain root access
      • ShortN0te
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        23
        ·
        1 year ago
        • you also need to know the correct username

        Use a secure password or key. Security by obscurity is no security.

        • audits and logging shows which user used sudo to gain root access

        That is not the point that was made. Once access to sudo or root you already have lost.

        • False@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          19
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          You’re making it that much easier for someone to brute force logging in or to exploit a known vulnerability. If you have a separate root password (which you should) an attacker needs to get through two passwords to do anything privileged.

          This has been considered an accepted best practice for 20+ years and there’s little reason not to do it anyways. You shouldn’t be running things as root directly regardless.

          • ShortN0te
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            When you have secure passwords kr key auth. Brute force is not a problem. What vulnerability are you talking about? Complete auth bypass? Then the username would be no problem either since you can just brute force usernames.

        • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          1 year ago

          Security though obscurity, BY ITSELF, is not security. But it’s great at slowing attackers and thwarting automated scripts.

          It’s bad security to ignore possible mitigations to a problem just because it isn’t as full fix.

    • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      Why disallow root login?

      It is very easy to throw a dictionary at your port 22. It happens every few minutes. And they all try it with the username=root unless they know something better.