Hardening services: let’s review our config files

It’s hardening Sunday here: I reviewed the config files of my main daemons (nginx, openvpn, tinc, sshd) with the help of two resources that I want to share with you, fellow readers.

First of all, a guide dedicated exclusively to hardening ssh: from using public key authentication only (I strictly encourage it!) to the selection of which ciphers ssh should use (there is theory behind, so read it!).

The second guide, is a guide for hardening all services, from web servers to VPN concentrators (divided by vendor): a worth reading guide. Every option is very well detailed and discussed, for all you nitpickers like me.

So, take aside 2 hours, read the theory, then adopt the changes you think would benefit your setup. Happy hardening!

Update: if you are using OSX, do not use default ssh toolset that ships with OSX: it is not updated and it does not have ssh-copy-id to distribute your public key among your ssh servers. More that that, OSX default ssh does not support ecdsa which is the main crypto algorithm that the linked guides are using.
Solution: brew install homebrew/dupes/openssh and adjust your PATH accordingly.

Leave a Reply