Hello,

I would like to have the password-based authentication allowed only if I login from one of our local machines (or directly from the terminal window/console straight on the machine), and the key(rsa/dsa)-based authentication from any other external box.

I am not happy about the solution I figured out (I am still not sure if this actually works, since I did not get a chance to log into the box from any remote/external point).

Allow both options in /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

PasswordAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes

And on top of that, I edited the /etc/security/access.conf to contain something like:

-:ALL EXCEPT LOCAL .our.local.address

which "should" be allowing only the local access to the machine (does it also block the external access when using keys? not sure).

Could anyone please suggest another, more "elegant" way to solve this problem?

I was reading some things about PAM, but could not find a definite answer to the problem.

We are running Debian Lenny on the machine that we would like to access.

I just tried to access the machine from a remote location by using a password authentication and it worked as well.

I am a bit puzzled, since I expected that there will no be authentication allowed from a remote location at all, due to the rule in /etc/security/access.conf...


Now, back to the goal: I would like to have a password based ssh (or just directly from console) access to a box from a machine located on the same network, and a key-based access to the same machine from a non-local network.

Thanks

What version of OpenSSH? If you have a new enough version to support the Match directive, you're in business.

pam_access(8) solves certain problems very well, but it's probably not what you want in this case.

1 members found this post helpful.

Oh, this is awesome! We have OpenSSH_5.1p1 and the match directive perfectly fits the need. Thank you very much! I finally feel relieved after days of searching and reading!