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1ssh-base Plugin
2================
3
4## Introduction
5
6lws-ssh-base is a protcol plugin for libwebsockets that implements a
7generic, abstract, ssh server.
8
9 - very small footprint in code and memory, takes up small part of ESP32
10
11 - written with security in mind: valgrind and Coverity -clean
12
13 - binds to one or more vhosts, that controls listen port(s)
14
15 - all IO and settings abstracted through a single "ops" struct from user code
16
17 - each instance on a vhost has its own "ops" struct, defining server keys,
18   auth method and functions to implement IO and other operations
19
20 - The plugin has no built-in behaviours like check ~/.ssh/authorized_keys,
21   treat auth usernames as system usernames, or spawn the user's shell.
22   Everything potentially dangerous is left to the user ops code to decide
23   how to handle.  It's NOT like sshd where running it implies it will accept
24   existing keys for any system user, will spawn a shell, etc, unless you
25   implement those parts in the ops callbacks.
26
27 - The plugin requires extra code around it in the form of the ops struct
28   handlers.  So it's role is something like an abstract base class for an ssh
29   server.  All the crypto, protocol sequencing and state machine are inside,
30   but all the IO except the network connection is outside.
31
32 - Built as part of libwebsockets, like all plugins may be dynamically loaded
33   at runtime or built statically.  Test app `libwebsockets-test-sshd` provided
34
35 - Uses hash and RSA functions from either mbedTLS or OpenSSL automatically,
36   according to which library libwebsockets was built for
37
38To maintain its small size, it implements a single "best of breed" crypto for
39the following functions:
40
41|Function|Crypto|
42|---|---|
43|KEX|curve25519-sha256@libssh.org|
44|Server host key|ssh-rsa (4096b)|
45|Encryption|chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com|
46|Compression|None|
47
48## License
49
50lws-ssh-base is Free Software, available under libwebsockets' MIT license.
51
52The crypto parts are available elsewhere under a BSD license.  But for
53simplicity the whole plugin is under MIT.
54
55## Generating your own keys
56
57```
58 $ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f mykeys
59```
60
61will ask for a passphrase and generate the private key in `mykeys` and the
62public key in `mykeys.pub`.  If you already have a suitable RSA key you use
63with ssh, you can just use that directly.
64
65lws installs a test keypair in /usr[/local]/share/libwebsockets-test-server
66that the test apps will accept.
67
68## Example code
69
701) There's a working example app `libwebsockets-test-sshd` included that
71spawns a bash shell when an ssh client authenticates.  The username used on
72the remote ssh has no meaning, it spawns the shell under the credentials of
73"lws-test-sshd" was run under.  It accepts the lws ssh test key which is
74installed into /usr[/local]/share/libwebsockets-test-server.
75
76Start the server like this (it wants root only because the server key is stored
77in /etc)
78
79```
80 $ sudo libwebsockets-test-sshd
81```
82
83Connect to it using the test private key like this
84
85```
86 $ ssh -p 2200 -i /usr/local/share/libwebsockets-test-server/lws-ssh-test-keys anyuser@127.0.0.1
87```
88
892) There's also a working example plugin `lws-sshd-demo` that "subclasses" the
90abstract `lws-ssh-base` plugin to make a protocol which can be used from,
91eg, lwsws.  For an lwsws vhost that listens on port 2222 and responds with
92the lws-sshd-demo ssh server, the related config is:
93
94```
95        {
96                "name": "sshd",
97                "port": "2222",
98                "onlyraw": "1",
99                "ws-protocols": [{
100                        "lws-ssh-base": {
101                                "status": "ok",
102                                "ops-from": "lws-sshd-demo"
103                        },
104                        "lws-sshd-demo": {
105                                "status": "ok",
106                                "raw": "1"
107                        }
108                }]
109        }
110```
111
112
113
114## Integration to other apps
115
116### Step 0: Build and install libwebsockets
117
118For the `libwebsockets-test-sshd` example, you will need CMake options
119`LWS_WITH_CGI`, since it uses lws helpers to spawn a shell.
120
121lws-ssh-base itself doesn't require CGI support in libwebsockets.
122
123### Step 1: make the code available in your app
124
125Include `lws-plugin-ssh-base` in your app, either as a runtime plugin or by using
126the lws static include scheme.
127
128To bring in the whole of the ssh-base plugin
129into your app in one step, statically, just include
130`plugins/ssh-base/include/lws-plugin-sshd-static-build-includes.h`, you can see
131an example of this in `./test-apps/test-sshd.c`.
132
133### Step 2: define your `struct lws_ssh_ops`
134
135`plugins/ssh-base/include/lws-plugin-ssh.h` defines
136`struct lws_ssh_ops` which is used for all customization and integration
137of the plugin per vhost.  Eg,
138
139```
140static const struct lws_ssh_ops ssh_ops = {
141	.channel_create			= ssh_ops_channel_create,
142	.channel_destroy		= ssh_ops_channel_destroy,
143	.tx_waiting			= ssh_ops_tx_waiting,
144	.tx				= ssh_ops_tx,
145	.rx				= ssh_ops_rx,
146	.get_server_key			= ssh_ops_get_server_key,
147	.set_server_key			= ssh_ops_set_server_key,
148	.set_env			= ssh_ops_set_env,
149	.pty_req			= ssh_ops_pty_req,
150	.child_process_io		= ssh_ops_child_process_io,
151	.child_process_terminated	= ssh_ops_child_process_terminated,
152	.exec				= ssh_ops_exec,
153	.shell				= ssh_ops_shell,
154	.is_pubkey_authorized		= ssh_ops_is_pubkey_authorized,
155	.banner				= ssh_ops_banner,
156	.disconnect_reason		= ssh_ops_disconnect_reason,
157	.server_string			= "SSH-2.0-Libwebsockets",
158	.api_version			= 1,
159};
160```
161The `ssh_ops_...()` functions are your implementations for the operations
162needed by the plugin for your purposes.
163
164### Step 3: enable `lws-ssh-base` protocol to a vhost and configure using pvo
165
166A pointer to your struct lws_ssh_ops is passed into the vhost instance of the
167protocol using per-vhost options
168
169```
170static const struct lws_protocol_vhost_options pvo_ssh_ops = {
171	NULL,
172	NULL,
173	"ops",
174	(void *)&ssh_ops
175};
176
177static const struct lws_protocol_vhost_options pvo_ssh = {
178	NULL,
179	&pvo_ssh_ops,
180	"lws-sshd-base",
181	"" /* ignored, just matches the protocol name above */
182};
183
184...
185	info.port = 22;
186	info.options = LWS_SERVER_OPTION_ONLY_RAW;
187	info.vhost_name = "sshd";
188	info.protocols = protocols_sshd;
189	info.pvo = &pvo_ssh;
190
191	vh_sshd = lws_create_vhost(context, &info);
192```
193
194There are two possible pvos supported, "ops", shown above, directly passes the
195ops structure in using the value on the "ops" pvo.
196
197To support other protocols that want to provide ops to lws-ssh-base themselves
198for a particular vhost, you can also provide a pvo `"ops-from"` whose value is
199the name of the protocol also enabled on this vhost, whose protocol ".user"
200pointer points to the ops struct lws-ssh-base should use.
201
202## Integration to other plugins
203
204A worked example of using the abstract `lws-ssh-base` plugin from another
205plugin that provides the ops struct is in `./plugins/protocol_lws_sshd_demo`.
206
207The key points to note
208
209 - the plugin sets the ops struct for the vhost instantiation of `lws-ssh-base`
210 by passing a pointer to the ops struct in its `lws_protocols` struct `user`
211 member.
212
213 - the config for the vhost tells `lws-ssh-base` to pick up the ops struct
214 pointer using an "ops-from" pvo that indicates the protocol name.
215
216```
217 			"lws-ssh-base": {
218                                "status": "ok",
219                                "ops-from": "lws-sshd-demo"
220                        },
221```
222
223 - the config for the vhost tells lws this vhost only serves RAW (ie, no http)
224
225```
226         {
227                "name": "sshd",
228                "port": "2222",
229                "onlyraw": "1",
230                ...
231```
232
233 - the config for the vhost marks the protocol that uses `lws-ssh-base`, not
234 `lws-ssh-base` itself, as the protocol to be served for raw connections
235
236```
237                        "lws-sshd-demo": {
238                                "status": "ok",
239                                "raw": "1"
240                         ...
241```
242
243## Notes
244
245You can have the vhost it binds to listen on a nonstandard port.  The ssh
246commandline app cane be told to connect to a non-22 port with
247`ssh -p portnum user@hostname`
248
249
250