If you peek into the manual page for sshconfig, you will find an option ForwardX11, which can be put in your config such as: Host wk Hostname W.X.Y.Z ForwardX11 yes And then your connections to host wk will have X11 forwarding enabled by default. The settings within 'config.ssh' relate to configuring how Vagrantwill access your machine over SSH. As with most Vagrant settings, thedefaults are typically fine, but you can fine tune whatever. Furthermore, if an SSH session is established over a wide area network, X11 forwarding over SSH may become even slower due to network. Enabling X11 forwarding and agent forwarding Developers, students, and researchers often want to enable X11 forwarding and SSH agent forwarding. These allow running graphical applications remotely and eliminate the need for typing a password whenever moving from one server to another, respectively.

sshd(8) reads configuration data from /etc/ssh/sshd_config (or the file specified with -f on the command line). The file contains keyword-argument pairs, one per line. For each keyword, the first obtained value will be used. Lines starting with ‘#’ and empty lines are interpreted as comments. Arguments may optionally be enclosed in double quotes (') in order to represent arguments containing spaces.

The possible keywords and their meanings are as follows (note that keywords are case-insensitive and arguments are case-sensitive):

AcceptEnv

Specifies what environment variables sent by the client will be copied into the session's environ(7). See SendEnv and SetEnv in ssh_config(5) for how to configure the client. The TERM environment variable is always accepted whenever the client requests a pseudo-terminal as it is required by the protocol. Variables are specified by name, which may contain the wildcard characters ‘*’ and ‘?’. Multiple environment variables may be separated by whitespace or spread across multiple AcceptEnv directives. Be warned that some environment variables could be used to bypass restricted user environments. For this reason, care should be taken in the use of this directive. The default is not to accept any environment variables.

Ssh Display X11

AddressFamily

Specifies which address family should be used by sshd(8). Valid arguments are any (the default), inet (use IPv4 only), or inet6 (use IPv6 only).

AllowAgentForwarding

Specifies whether ssh-agent(1) forwarding is permitted. The default is yes. Note that disabling agent forwarding does not improve security unless users are also denied shell access, as they can always install their own forwarders.

AllowGroups

This keyword can be followed by a list of group name patterns, separated by spaces. If specified, login is allowed only for users whose primary group or supplementary group list matches one of the patterns. Only group names are valid; a numerical group ID is not recognized. By default, login is allowed for all groups. The allow/deny groups directives are processed in the following order: DenyGroups, AllowGroups.

See PATTERNS in ssh_config(5) for more information on patterns.

AllowStreamLocalForwarding

Specifies whether StreamLocal (Unix-domain socket) forwarding is permitted. The available options are yes (the default) or all to allow StreamLocal forwarding, no to prevent all StreamLocal forwarding, local to allow local (from the perspective of ssh(1)) forwarding only or remote to allow remote forwarding only. Note that disabling StreamLocal forwarding does not improve security unless users are also denied shell access, as they can always install their own forwarders.

AllowTcpForwarding

Specifies whether TCP forwarding is permitted. The available options are yes (the default) or all to allow TCP forwarding, no to prevent all TCP forwarding, local to allow local (from the perspective of ssh(1)) forwarding only or remote to allow remote forwarding only. Note that disabling TCP forwarding does not improve security unless users are also denied shell access, as they can always install their own forwarders.

AllowUsers

This keyword can be followed by a list of user name patterns, separated by spaces. If specified, login is allowed only for user names that match one of the patterns. Only user names are valid; a numerical user ID is not recognized. By default, login is allowed for all users. If the pattern takes the form USER@HOST then USER and HOST are separately checked, restricting logins to particular users from particular hosts. HOST criteria may additionally contain addresses to match in CIDR address/masklen format. The allow/deny users directives are processed in the following order: DenyUsers, AllowUsers.

See PATTERNS in ssh_config(5) for more information on patterns.

AuthenticationMethods

Specifies the authentication methods that must be successfully completed for a user to be granted access. This option must be followed by one or more lists of comma-separated authentication method names, or by the single string any to indicate the default behaviour of accepting any single authentication method. If the default is overridden, then successful authentication requires completion of every method in at least one of these lists.

For example, 'publickey,password publickey,keyboard-interactive' would require the user to complete public key authentication, followed by either password or keyboard interactive authentication. Only methods that are next in one or more lists are offered at each stage, so for this example it would not be possible to attempt password or keyboard-interactive authentication before public key.

For keyboard interactive authentication it is also possible to restrict authentication to a specific device by appending a colon followed by the device identifier bsdauth, pam, or skey, depending on the server configuration. For example, 'keyboard-interactive:bsdauth' would restrict keyboard interactive authentication to the bsdauth device.

If the publickey method is listed more than once, sshd(8) verifies that keys that have been used successfully are not reused for subsequent authentications. For example, 'publickey,publickey' requires successful authentication using two different public keys.

Note that each authentication method listed should also be explicitly enabled in the configuration.

The available authentication methods are: 'gssapi-with-mic', 'hostbased', 'keyboard-interactive', 'none' (used for access to password-less accounts when PermitEmptyPasswords is enabled), 'password' and 'publickey'.

AuthorizedKeysCommand

Specifies a program to be used to look up the user's public keys. The program must be owned by root, not writable by group or others and specified by an absolute path. Arguments to AuthorizedKeysCommand accept the tokens described in the TOKENS section. If no arguments are specified then the username of the target user is used.

The program should produce on standard output zero or more lines of authorized_keys output (see AUTHORIZED_KEYS in sshd(8)). AuthorizedKeysCommand is tried after the usual AuthorizedKeysFile files and will not be executed if a matching key is found there. By default, no AuthorizedKeysCommand is run.

AuthorizedKeysCommandUser

Specifies the user under whose account the AuthorizedKeysCommand is run. It is recommended to use a dedicated user that has no other role on the host than running authorized keys commands. If AuthorizedKeysCommand is specified but AuthorizedKeysCommandUser is not, then sshd(8) will refuse to start.

AuthorizedKeysFile

Specifies the file that contains the public keys used for user authentication. The format is described in the AUTHORIZED_KEYS FILE FORMAT section of sshd(8). Arguments to AuthorizedKeysFile accept the tokens described in the TOKENS section. After expansion, AuthorizedKeysFile is taken to be an absolute path or one relative to the user's home directory. Multiple files may be listed, separated by whitespace. Alternately this option may be set to none to skip checking for user keys in files. The default is '.ssh/authorized_keys .ssh/authorized_keys2'.

AuthorizedPrincipalsCommand

Specifies a program to be used to generate the list of allowed certificate principals as per AuthorizedPrincipalsFile. The program must be owned by root, not writable by group or others and specified by an absolute path. Arguments to AuthorizedPrincipalsCommand accept the tokens described in the TOKENS section. If no arguments are specified then the username of the target user is used.

The program should produce on standard output zero or more lines of AuthorizedPrincipalsFile output. If either AuthorizedPrincipalsCommand or AuthorizedPrincipalsFile is specified, then certificates offered by the client for authentication must contain a principal that is listed. By default, no AuthorizedPrincipalsCommand is run.

AuthorizedPrincipalsCommandUser

Specifies the user under whose account the AuthorizedPrincipalsCommand is run. It is recommended to use a dedicated user that has no other role on the host than running authorized principals commands. If AuthorizedPrincipalsCommand is specified but AuthorizedPrincipalsCommandUser is not, then sshd(8) will refuse to start.

AuthorizedPrincipalsFile

Specifies a file that lists principal names that are accepted for certificate authentication. When using certificates signed by a key listed in TrustedUserCAKeys, this file lists names, one of which must appear in the certificate for it to be accepted for authentication. Names are listed one per line preceded by key options (as described in AUTHORIZED_KEYS FILE FORMAT in sshd(8)). Empty lines and comments starting with ‘#’ are ignored.

Arguments to AuthorizedPrincipalsFile accept the tokens described in the TOKENS section. After expansion, AuthorizedPrincipalsFile is taken to be an absolute path or one relative to the user's home directory. The default is none, i.e. not to use a principals file – in this case, the username of the user must appear in a certificate's principals list for it to be accepted.

Note that AuthorizedPrincipalsFile is only used when authentication proceeds using a CA listed in TrustedUserCAKeys and is not consulted for certification authorities trusted via ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, though the principals= key option offers a similar facility (see sshd(8) for details).

Banner

The contents of the specified file are sent to the remote user before authentication is allowed. If the argument is none then no banner is displayed. By default, no banner is displayed.

CASignatureAlgorithms

Specifies which algorithms are allowed for signing of certificates by certificate authorities (CAs). The default is:

Certificates signed using other algorithms will not be accepted for public key or host-based authentication.

ChallengeResponseAuthentication

Specifies whether challenge-response authentication is allowed. All authentication styles from login.conf(5) are supported. The default is yes.

ChrootDirectory

Specifies the pathname of a directory to chroot(2) to after authentication. At session startup sshd(8) checks that all components of the pathname are root-owned directories which are not writable by any other user or group. After the chroot, sshd(8) changes the working directory to the user's home directory. Arguments to ChrootDirectory accept the tokens described in the TOKENS section.

The ChrootDirectory must contain the necessary files and directories to support the user's session. For an interactive session this requires at least a shell, typically sh(1), and basic /dev nodes such as null(4), zero(4), stdin(4), stdout(4), stderr(4), and tty(4) devices. For file transfer sessions using SFTP no additional configuration of the environment is necessary if the in-process sftp-server is used, though sessions which use logging may require /dev/log inside the chroot directory on some operating systems (see sftp-server(8) for details).

For safety, it is very important that the directory hierarchy be prevented from modification by other processes on the system (especially those outside the jail). Misconfiguration can lead to unsafe environments which sshd(8) cannot detect.

The default is none, indicating not to chroot(2).

Ciphers

Specifies the ciphers allowed. Multiple ciphers must be comma-separated. If the specified list begins with a ‘+’ character, then the specified ciphers will be appended to the default set instead of replacing them. If the specified list begins with a ‘-’ character, then the specified ciphers (including wildcards) will be removed from the default set instead of replacing them. If the specified list begins with a ‘^’ character, then the specified ciphers will be placed at the head of the default set.

The supported ciphers are:

• 3des-cbc
• aes128-cbc
• aes192-cbc
• aes256-cbc
• aes128-ctr
• aes192-ctr
• aes256-ctr
• aes128-gcm@openssh.com
• aes256-gcm@openssh.com
• chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com

The default is:

The list of available ciphers may also be obtained using 'ssh -Q cipher'.

ClientAliveCountMax

Sets the number of client alive messages which may be sent without sshd(8) receiving any messages back from the client. If this threshold is reached while client alive messages are being sent, sshd will disconnect the client, terminating the session. It is important to note that the use of client alive messages is very different from TCPKeepAlive. The client alive messages are sent through the encrypted channel and therefore will not be spoofable. The TCP keepalive option enabled by TCPKeepAlive is spoofable. The client alive mechanism is valuable when the client or server depend on knowing when a connection has become unresponsive.

The default value is 3. If ClientAliveInterval is set to 15, and ClientAliveCountMax is left at the default, unresponsive SSH clients will be disconnected after approximately 45 seconds. Setting a zero ClientAliveCountMax disables connection termination.

ClientAliveInterval

Sets a timeout interval in seconds after which if no data has been received from the client, sshd(8) will send a message through the encrypted channel to request a response from the client. The default is 0, indicating that these messages will not be sent to the client.

Compression

Specifies whether compression is enabled after the user has authenticated successfully. The argument must be yes, delayed (a legacy synonym for yes) or no. The default is yes.

DenyGroups

This keyword can be followed by a list of group name patterns, separated by spaces. Login is disallowed for users whose primary group or supplementary group list matches one of the patterns. Only group names are valid; a numerical group ID is not recognized. By default, login is allowed for all groups. The allow/deny groups directives are processed in the following order: DenyGroups, AllowGroups.

See PATTERNS in ssh_config(5) for more information on patterns.

DenyUsers

This keyword can be followed by a list of user name patterns, separated by spaces. Login is disallowed for user names that match one of the patterns. Only user names are valid; a numerical user ID is not recognized. By default, login is allowed for all users. If the pattern takes the form USER@HOST then USER and HOST are separately checked, restricting logins to particular users from particular hosts. HOST criteria may additionally contain addresses to match in CIDR address/masklen format. The allow/deny users directives are processed in the following order: DenyUsers, AllowUsers.

See PATTERNS in ssh_config(5) for more information on patterns.

DisableForwarding

Disables all forwarding features, including X11, ssh-agent(1), TCP and StreamLocal. This option overrides all other forwarding-related options and may simplify restricted configurations.

ExposeAuthInfo

Writes a temporary file containing a list of authentication methods and public credentials (e.g. keys) used to authenticate the user. The location of the file is exposed to the user session through the SSH_USER_AUTH environment variable. The default is no.

FingerprintHash

Specifies the hash algorithm used when logging key fingerprints. Valid options are: md5 and sha256. The default is sha256.

ForceCommand

Forces the execution of the command specified by ForceCommand, ignoring any command supplied by the client and ~/.ssh/rc if present. The command is invoked by using the user's login shell with the -c option. This applies to shell, command, or subsystem execution. It is most useful inside a Match block. The command originally supplied by the client is available in the SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND environment variable. Specifying a command of internal-sftp will force the use of an in-process SFTP server that requires no support files when used with ChrootDirectory. The default is none.

GatewayPorts

Specifies whether remote hosts are allowed to connect to ports forwarded for the client. By default, sshd(8) binds remote port forwardings to the loopback address. This prevents other remote hosts from connecting to forwarded ports. GatewayPorts can be used to specify that sshd should allow remote port forwardings to bind to non-loopback addresses, thus allowing other hosts to connect. The argument may be no to force remote port forwardings to be available to the local host only, yes to force remote port forwardings to bind to the wildcard address, or clientspecified to allow the client to select the address to which the forwarding is bound. The default is no.

GSSAPIAuthentication

Specifies whether user authentication based on GSSAPI is allowed. The default is no.

GSSAPICleanupCredentials

Specifies whether to automatically destroy the user's credentials cache on logout. The default is yes.

GSSAPIStrictAcceptorCheck

Determines whether to be strict about the identity of the GSSAPI acceptor a client authenticates against. If set to yes then the client must authenticate against the host service on the current hostname. If set to no then the client may authenticate against any service key stored in the machine's default store. This facility is provided to assist with operation on multi homed machines. The default is yes.

HostbasedAcceptedAlgorithms

Specifies the signature algorithms that will be accepted for hostbased authentication as a list of comma-separated patterns. Alternately if the specified list begins with a ‘+’ character, then the specified signature algorithms will be appended to the default set instead of replacing them. If the specified list begins with a ‘-’ character, then the specified signature algorithms (including wildcards) will be removed from the default set instead of replacing them. If the specified list begins with a ‘^’ character, then the specified signature algorithms will be placed at the head of the default set. The default for this option is:

The list of available signature algorithms may also be obtained using 'ssh -Q HostbasedAcceptedAlgorithms'. This was formerly named HostbasedAcceptedKeyTypes.

HostbasedAuthentication

Specifies whether rhosts or /etc/hosts.equiv authentication together with successful public key client host authentication is allowed (host-based authentication). The default is no.

HostbasedUsesNameFromPacketOnly

Specifies whether or not the server will attempt to perform a reverse name lookup when matching the name in the ~/.shosts, ~/.rhosts, and /etc/hosts.equiv files during HostbasedAuthentication. A setting of yes means that sshd(8) uses the name supplied by the client rather than attempting to resolve the name from the TCP connection itself. The default is no.

HostCertificate

Specifies a file containing a public host certificate. The certificate's public key must match a private host key already specified by HostKey. The default behaviour of sshd(8) is not to load any certificates.

HostKey

Specifies a file containing a private host key used by SSH. The defaults are /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key, /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key and /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.

Note that sshd(8) will refuse to use a file if it is group/world-accessible and that the HostKeyAlgorithms option restricts which of the keys are actually used by sshd(8).

It is possible to have multiple host key files. It is also possible to specify public host key files instead. In this case operations on the private key will be delegated to an ssh-agent(1).

HostKeyAgent

Identifies the UNIX-domain socket used to communicate with an agent that has access to the private host keys. If the string 'SSH_AUTH_SOCK' is specified, the location of the socket will be read from the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable.

HostKeyAlgorithms

Specifies the host key signature algorithms that the server offers. The default for this option is:

The list of available signature algorithms may also be obtained using 'ssh -Q HostKeyAlgorithms'.

IgnoreRhosts

Specifies whether to ignore per-user .rhosts and .shosts files during HostbasedAuthentication. The system-wide /etc/hosts.equiv and /etc/shosts.equiv are still used regardless of this setting.

Accepted values are yes (the default) to ignore all per-user files, shosts-only to allow the use of .shosts but to ignore .rhosts or no to allow both .shosts and rhosts.

IgnoreUserKnownHosts

Specifies whether sshd(8) should ignore the user's ~/.ssh/known_hosts during HostbasedAuthentication and use only the system-wide known hosts file /etc/ssh/known_hosts. The default is “no”.

Include

Include the specified configuration file(s). Multiple pathnames may be specified and each pathname may contain glob(7) wildcards that will be expanded and processed in lexical order. Files without absolute paths are assumed to be in /etc/ssh. An Include directive may appear inside a Match block to perform conditional inclusion.

IPQoS

Specifies the IPv4 type-of-service or DSCP class for the connection. Accepted values are af11, af12, af13, af21, af22, af23, af31, af32, af33, af41, af42, af43, cs0, cs1, cs2, cs3, cs4, cs5, cs6, cs7, ef, le, lowdelay, throughput, reliability, a numeric value, or none to use the operating system default. This option may take one or two arguments, separated by whitespace. If one argument is specified, it is used as the packet class unconditionally. If two values are specified, the first is automatically selected for interactive sessions and the second for non-interactive sessions. The default is af21 (Low-Latency Data) for interactive sessions and cs1 (Lower Effort) for non-interactive sessions.

KbdInteractiveAuthentication

Specifies whether to allow keyboard-interactive authentication. The argument to this keyword must be yes or no. The default is to use whatever value ChallengeResponseAuthentication is set to (by default yes).

KerberosAuthentication

Specifies whether the password provided by the user for PasswordAuthentication will be validated through the Kerberos KDC. To use this option, the server needs a Kerberos servtab which allows the verification of the KDC's identity. The default is no.

KerberosGetAFSToken

If AFS is active and the user has a Kerberos 5 TGT, attempt to acquire an AFS token before accessing the user's home directory. The default is no.

KerberosOrLocalPasswd

If password authentication through Kerberos fails then the password will be validated via any additional local mechanism such as /etc/passwd. The default is yes.

KerberosTicketCleanup

Specifies whether to automatically destroy the user's ticket cache file on logout. The default is yes.

KexAlgorithms

Specifies the available KEX (Key Exchange) algorithms. Multiple algorithms must be comma-separated. Alternately if the specified list begins with a ‘+’ character, then the specified methods will be appended to the default set instead of replacing them. If the specified list begins with a ‘-’ character, then the specified methods (including wildcards) will be removed from the default set instead of replacing them. If the specified list begins with a ‘^’ character, then the specified methods will be placed at the head of the default set. The supported algorithms are:

• curve25519-sha256
• curve25519-sha256@libssh.org
• diffie-hellman-group1-sha1
• diffie-hellman-group14-sha1
• diffie-hellman-group14-sha256
• diffie-hellman-group16-sha512
• diffie-hellman-group18-sha512
• diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1
• diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256
• ecdh-sha2-nistp256
• ecdh-sha2-nistp384
• ecdh-sha2-nistp521
• sntrup761x25519-sha512@openssh.com

The default is:

The list of available key exchange algorithms may also be obtained using 'ssh -Q KexAlgorithms'.

ListenAddress

Specifies the local addresses sshd(8) should listen on. The following forms may be used:

• ListenAddresshostname|address [rdomaindomain]
• ListenAddresshostname:port [rdomaindomain]
• ListenAddressIPv4_address:port [rdomaindomain]
• ListenAddress [hostname|address]:port [rdomaindomain]

The optional rdomain qualifier requests sshd(8) listen in an explicit routing domain. If port is not specified, sshd will listen on the address and all Port options specified. The default is to listen on all local addresses on the current default routing domain. Multiple ListenAddress options are permitted. For more information on routing domains, see rdomain(4).

LoginGraceTime

The server disconnects after this time if the user has not successfully logged in. If the value is 0, there is no time limit. The default is 120 seconds.

LogLevel

Gives the verbosity level that is used when logging messages from sshd(8). The possible values are: QUIET, FATAL, ERROR, INFO, VERBOSE, DEBUG, DEBUG1, DEBUG2, and DEBUG3. The default is INFO. DEBUG and DEBUG1 are equivalent. DEBUG2 and DEBUG3 each specify higher levels of debugging output. Logging with a DEBUG level violates the privacy of users and is not recommended.

LogVerbose

Specify one or more overrides to LogLevel. An override consists of a pattern lists that matches the source file, function and line number to force detailed logging for. For example, an override pattern of:

would enable detailed logging for line 1000 of kex.c, everything in the kex_exchange_identification() function, and all code in the packet.c file. This option is intended for debugging and no overrides are enabled by default.

MACs

Specifies the available MAC (message authentication code) algorithms. The MAC algorithm is used for data integrity protection. Multiple algorithms must be comma-separated. If the specified list begins with a ‘+’ character, then the specified algorithms will be appended to the default set instead of replacing them. If the specified list begins with a ‘-’ character, then the specified algorithms (including wildcards) will be removed from the default set instead of replacing them. If the specified list begins with a ‘^’ character, then the specified algorithms will be placed at the head of the default set.

The algorithms that contain '-etm' calculate the MAC after encryption (encrypt-then-mac). These are considered safer and their use recommended. The supported MACs are:

• hmac-md5
• hmac-md5-96
• hmac-sha1
• hmac-sha1-96
• hmac-sha2-256
• hmac-sha2-512
• umac-64@openssh.com
• umac-128@openssh.com
• hmac-md5-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-md5-96-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-sha1-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-sha1-96-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com
• umac-64-etm@openssh.com
• umac-128-etm@openssh.com

The default is:

The list of available MAC algorithms may also be obtained using 'ssh -Q mac'.

Match

Introduces a conditional block. If all of the criteria on the Match line are satisfied, the keywords on the following lines override those set in the global section of the config file, until either another Match line or the end of the file. If a keyword appears in multiple Match blocks that are satisfied, only the first instance of the keyword is applied.

The arguments to Match are one or more criteria-pattern pairs or the single token All which matches all criteria. The available criteria are User, Group, Host, LocalAddress, LocalPort, RDomain, and Address (with RDomain representing the rdomain(4) on which the connection was received).

The match patterns may consist of single entries or comma-separated lists and may use the wildcard and negation operators described in the PATTERNS section of ssh_config(5).

The patterns in an Address criteria may additionally contain addresses to match in CIDR address/masklen format, such as 192.0.2.0/24 or 2001:db8::/32. Note that the mask length provided must be consistent with the address - it is an error to specify a mask length that is too long for the address or one with bits set in this host portion of the address. For example, 192.0.2.0/33 and 192.0.2.0/8, respectively.

Only a subset of keywords may be used on the lines following a Match keyword. Available keywords are AcceptEnv, AllowAgentForwarding, AllowGroups, AllowStreamLocalForwarding, AllowTcpForwarding, AllowUsers, AuthenticationMethods, AuthorizedKeysCommand, AuthorizedKeysCommandUser, AuthorizedKeysFile, AuthorizedPrincipalsCommand, AuthorizedPrincipalsCommandUser, AuthorizedPrincipalsFile, Banner, ChrootDirectory, ClientAliveCountMax, ClientAliveInterval, DenyGroups, DenyUsers, DisableForwarding, ForceCommand, GatewayPorts, GSSAPIAuthentication, HostbasedAcceptedAlgorithms, HostbasedAuthentication, HostbasedUsesNameFromPacketOnly, IgnoreRhosts, Include, IPQoS, KbdInteractiveAuthentication, KerberosAuthentication, LogLevel, MaxAuthTries, MaxSessions, PasswordAuthentication, PermitEmptyPasswords, PermitListen, PermitOpen, PermitRootLogin, PermitTTY, PermitTunnel, PermitUserRC, PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms, PubkeyAuthentication, RekeyLimit, RevokedKeys, RDomain, SetEnv, StreamLocalBindMask, StreamLocalBindUnlink, TrustedUserCAKeys, X11DisplayOffset, X11Forwarding and X11UseLocalhost.

MaxAuthTries

Specifies the maximum number of authentication attempts permitted per connection. Once the number of failures reaches half this value, additional failures are logged. The default is 6.

MaxSessions

Specifies the maximum number of open shell, login or subsystem (e.g. sftp) sessions permitted per network connection. Multiple sessions may be established by clients that support connection multiplexing. Setting MaxSessions to 1 will effectively disable session multiplexing, whereas setting it to 0 will prevent all shell, login and subsystem sessions while still permitting forwarding. The default is 10.

MaxStartups

Specifies the maximum number of concurrent unauthenticated connections to the SSH daemon. Additional connections will be dropped until authentication succeeds or the LoginGraceTime expires for a connection. The default is 10:30:100.

Alternatively, random early drop can be enabled by specifying the three colon separated values start:rate:full (e.g. '10:30:60'). sshd(8) will refuse connection attempts with a probability of rate/100 (30%) if there are currently start (10) unauthenticated connections. The probability increases linearly and all connection attempts are refused if the number of unauthenticated connections reaches full (60).

ModuliFile

Specifies the moduli(5) file that contains the Diffie-Hellman groups used for the “diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1” and “diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256” key exchange methods. The default is /etc/moduli.

PasswordAuthentication

Specifies whether password authentication is allowed. The default is yes.

PermitEmptyPasswords

When password authentication is allowed, it specifies whether the server allows login to accounts with empty password strings. The default is no.

PermitListen

Specifies the addresses/ports on which a remote TCP port forwarding may listen. The listen specification must be one of the following forms:

• PermitListenport
• PermitListenhost:port

Multiple permissions may be specified by separating them with whitespace. An argument of any can be used to remove all restrictions and permit any listen requests. An argument of none can be used to prohibit all listen requests. The host name may contain wildcards as described in the PATTERNS section in ssh_config(5). The wildcard ‘*’ can also be used in place of a port number to allow all ports. By default all port forwarding listen requests are permitted. Note that the GatewayPorts option may further restrict which addresses may be listened on. Note also that ssh(1) will request a listen host of “localhost” if no listen host was specifically requested, and this name is treated differently to explicit localhost addresses of “127.0.0.1” and “::1”.

PermitOpen

Specifies the destinations to which TCP port forwarding is permitted. The forwarding specification must be one of the following forms:

• PermitOpenhost:port
• PermitOpenIPv4_addr:port
• PermitOpen[IPv6_addr]:port

Multiple forwards may be specified by separating them with whitespace. An argument of any can be used to remove all restrictions and permit any forwarding requests. An argument of none can be used to prohibit all forwarding requests. The wildcard ‘*’ can be used for host or port to allow all hosts or ports respectively. Otherwise, no pattern matching or address lookups are performed on supplied names. By default all port forwarding requests are permitted.

PermitRootLogin

Specifies whether root can log in using ssh(1). The argument must be yes, prohibit-password, forced-commands-only, or no. The default is prohibit-password.

If this option is set to prohibit-password (or its deprecated alias, without-password), password and keyboard-interactive authentication are disabled for root.

If this option is set to forced-commands-only, root login with public key authentication will be allowed, but only if the command option has been specified (which may be useful for taking remote backups even if root login is normally not allowed). All other authentication methods are disabled for root.

If this option is set to no, root is not allowed to log in.

PermitTTY

Specifies whether pty(4) allocation is permitted. The default is yes.

PermitTunnel

Specifies whether tun(4) device forwarding is allowed. The argument must be yes, point-to-point (layer 3), ethernet (layer 2), or no. Specifying

Ssh Config Forward X11

yes permits both point-to-point and ethernet. The default is no.

Independent of this setting, the permissions of the selected tun(4) device must allow access to the user.

PermitUserEnvironment

Specifies whether ~/.ssh/environment and environment= options in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys are processed by sshd(8). Valid options are yes, no or a pattern-list specifying which environment variable names to accept (for example 'LANG,LC_*'). The default is no. Enabling environment processing may enable users to bypass access restrictions in some configurations using mechanisms such as LD_PRELOAD.

PermitUserRC

Specifies whether any ~/.ssh/rc file is executed. The default is yes.

PerSourceMaxStartups

Specifies the number of unauthenticated connections allowed from a given source address, or “none” if there is no limit. This limit is applied in addition to MaxStartups, whichever is lower. The default is none.

PerSourceNetBlockSize

Specifies the number of bits of source address that are grouped together for the purposes of applying PerSourceMaxStartups limits. Values for IPv4 and optionally IPv6 may be specified, separated by a colon. The default is 32:128, which means each address is considered individually.

PidFile

Specifies the file that contains the process ID of the SSH daemon, or none to not write one. The default is /var/run/sshd.pid.

Port

Specifies the port number that sshd(8) listens on. The default is 22. Multiple options of this type are permitted. See also ListenAddress.

PrintLastLog

Specifies whether sshd(8) should print the date and time of the last user login when a user logs in interactively. The default is yes.

PrintMotd

Specifies whether sshd(8) should print /etc/motd when a user logs in interactively. (On some systems it is also printed by the shell, /etc/profile, or equivalent.) The default is yes.

PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms

Specifies the signature algorithms that will be accepted for public key authentication as a list of comma-separated patterns. Alternately if the specified list begins with a ‘+’ character, then the specified algorithms will be appended to the default set instead of replacing them. If the specified list begins with a ‘-’ character, then the specified algorithms (including wildcards) will be removed from the default set instead of replacing them. If the specified list begins with a ‘^’ character, then the specified algorithms will be placed at the head of the default set. The default for this option is:

The list of available signature algorithms may also be obtained using 'ssh -Q PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms'.

PubkeyAuthOptions

Sets one or more public key authentication options. The supported keywords are: none (the default; indicating no additional options are enabled), touch-required and verify-required.

The touch-required option causes public key authentication using a FIDO authenticator algorithm (i.e. ecdsa-sk or ed25519-sk) to always require the signature to attest that a physically present user explicitly confirmed the authentication (usually by touching the authenticator). By default, sshd(8) requires user presence unless overridden with an authorized_keys option. The touch-required flag disables this override.

The verify-required option requires a FIDO key signature attest that the user was verified, e.g. via a PIN.

Neither the touch-required or verify-required options have any effect for other, non-FIDO, public key types.

PubkeyAuthentication

Specifies whether public key authentication is allowed. The default is yes.

RekeyLimit

Specifies the maximum amount of data that may be transmitted before the session key is renegotiated, optionally followed by a maximum amount of time that may pass before the session key is renegotiated. The first argument is specified in bytes and may have a suffix of ‘K’, ‘M’, or ‘G’ to indicate Kilobytes, Megabytes, or Gigabytes, respectively. The default is between ‘1G’ and ‘4G’, depending on the cipher. The optional second value is specified in seconds and may use any of the units documented in the TIME FORMATS section. The default value for RekeyLimit is default none, which means that rekeying is performed after the cipher's default amount of data has been sent or received and no time based rekeying is done.

RevokedKeys

Specifies revoked public keys file, or none to not use one. Keys listed in this file will be refused for public key authentication. Note that if this file is not readable, then public key authentication will be refused for all users. Keys may be specified as a text file, listing one public key per line, or as an OpenSSH Key Revocation List (KRL) as generated by ssh-keygen(1). For more information on KRLs, see the KEY REVOCATION LISTS section in ssh-keygen(1).

RDomain

Specifies an explicit routing domain that is applied after authentication has completed. The user session, as well and any forwarded or listening IP sockets, will be bound to this rdomain(4). If the routing domain is set to %D, then the domain in which the incoming connection was received will be applied.

SecurityKeyProvider

Specifies a path to a library that will be used when loading FIDO authenticator-hosted keys, overriding the default of using the built-in USB HID support.

SetEnv

Specifies one or more environment variables to set in child sessions started by sshd(8) as “NAME=VALUE”. The environment value may be quoted (e.g. if it contains whitespace characters). Environment variables set by SetEnv override the default environment and any variables specified by the user via AcceptEnv or PermitUserEnvironment.

StreamLocalBindMask

Sets the octal file creation mode mask (umask) used when creating a Unix-domain socket file for local or remote port forwarding. This option is only used for port forwarding to a Unix-domain socket file.

The default value is 0177, which creates a Unix-domain socket file that is readable and writable only by the owner. Note that not all operating systems honor the file mode on Unix-domain socket files.

StreamLocalBindUnlink

Specifies whether to remove an existing Unix-domain socket file for local or remote port forwarding before creating a new one. If the socket file already exists and StreamLocalBindUnlink is not enabled, sshd will be unable to forward the port to the Unix-domain socket file. This option is only used for port forwarding to a Unix-domain socket file.

The argument must be yes or no. The default is no.

StrictModes

Specifies whether sshd(8) should check file modes and ownership of the user's files and home directory before accepting login. This is normally desirable because novices sometimes accidentally leave their directory or files world-writable. The default is yes. Note that this does not apply to ChrootDirectory, whose permissions and ownership are checked unconditionally.

Subsystem

Configures an external subsystem (e.g. file transfer daemon). Arguments should be a subsystem name and a command (with optional arguments) to execute upon subsystem request.

The command sftp-server implements the SFTP file transfer subsystem.

Alternately the name internal-sftp implements an in-process SFTP server. This may simplify configurations using ChrootDirectory to force a different filesystem root on clients.

By default no subsystems are defined.

SyslogFacility

Gives the facility code that is used when logging messages from sshd(8). The possible values are: DAEMON, USER, AUTH, LOCAL0, LOCAL1, LOCAL2, LOCAL3, LOCAL4, LOCAL5, LOCAL6, LOCAL7. The default is AUTH.

TCPKeepAlive

Specifies whether the system should send TCP keepalive messages to the other side. If they are sent, death of the connection or crash of one of the machines will be properly noticed. However, this means that connections will die if the route is down temporarily, and some people find it annoying. On the other hand, if TCP keepalives are not sent, sessions may hang indefinitely on the server, leaving 'ghost' users and consuming server resources.

The default is yes (to send TCP keepalive messages), and the server will notice if the network goes down or the client host crashes. This avoids infinitely hanging sessions.

To disable TCP keepalive messages, the value should be set to no.

TrustedUserCAKeys

Specifies a file containing public keys of certificate authorities that are trusted to sign user certificates for authentication, or none to not use one. Keys are listed one per line; empty lines and comments starting with ‘#’ are allowed. If a certificate is presented for authentication and has its signing CA key listed in this file, then it may be used for authentication for any user listed in the certificate's principals list. Note that certificates that lack a list of principals will not be permitted for authentication using TrustedUserCAKeys. For more details on certificates, see the CERTIFICATES section in ssh-keygen(1).

UseDNS

Specifies whether sshd(8) should look up the remote host name, and to check that the resolved host name for the remote IP address maps back to the very same IP address.

If this option is set to no (the default) then only addresses and not host names may be used in ~/.ssh/authorized_keysfrom and sshd_configMatchHost directives.

VersionAddendum

Optionally specifies additional text to append to the SSH protocol banner sent by the server upon connection. The default is none.

X11DisplayOffset

Specifies the first display number available for sshd(8)'s X11 forwarding. This prevents sshd from interfering with real X11 servers. The default is 10.

X11Forwarding

Specifies whether X11 forwarding is permitted. The argument must be yes or no. The default is no.

When X11 forwarding is enabled, there may be additional exposure to the server and to client displays if the sshd(8) proxy display is configured to listen on the wildcard address (see X11UseLocalhost), though this is not the default. Additionally, the authentication spoofing and authentication data verification and substitution occur on the client side. The security risk of using X11 forwarding is that the client's X11 display server may be exposed to attack when the SSH client requests forwarding (see the warnings for ForwardX11 in ssh_config(5)). A system administrator may have a stance in which they want to protect clients that may expose themselves to attack by unwittingly requesting X11 forwarding, which can warrant a no setting.

Note that disabling X11 forwarding does not prevent users from forwarding X11 traffic, as users can always install their own forwarders.

X11UseLocalhost

Specifies whether sshd(8) should bind the X11 forwarding server to the loopback address or to the wildcard address. By default, sshd binds the forwarding server to the loopback address and sets the hostname part of the DISPLAY environment variable to localhost. This prevents remote hosts from connecting to the proxy display. However, some older X11 clients may not function with this configuration. X11UseLocalhost may be set to no to specify that the forwarding server should be bound to the wildcard address. The argument must be yes or no. The default is yes.

XAuthLocation

Specifies the full pathname of the xauth(1) program, or none to not use one. The default is /usr/X11R6/bin/xauth.

Parent page: Internet and Networking >> SSH

Contents Types of Port Forwarding Forwarding GUI Programs

Port forwarding via SSH (SSH tunneling) creates a secure connection between a local computer and a remote machine through which services can be relayed. Because the connection is encrypted, SSH tunneling is useful for transmitting information that uses an unencrypted protocol, such as IMAP, VNC, or IRC.

SSH's port forwarding feature can smuggle various types of Internet traffic into or out of a network. This can be used to avoid network monitoring or sniffers, or bypass badly configured routers on the Internet. Note: You might also need to change the settings in other programs (like your web browser) in order to circumvent these filters.

Warning: Filtering and monitoring is usually implemented for a reason. Even if you don't agree with that reason, your IT department might not take kindly to you flouting their rules.

There are three types of port forwarding with SSH:

• Local port forwarding: connections from the SSH client are forwarded via the SSH server, then to a destination server

• Remote port forwarding: connections from the SSH server are forwarded via the SSH client, then to a destination server

• Dynamic port forwarding: connections from various programs are forwarded via the SSH client, then via the SSH server, and finally to several destination servers

Local port forwarding is the most common type. For example, local port forwarding lets you bypass a company firewall that blocks Wikipedia.

Remote port forwarding is less common. For example, remote port forwarding lets you connect from your SSH server to a computer on your company's intranet.

Dynamic port forwarding is rarely used. For example, dynamic port forwarding lets you bypass a company firewall that blocks web access altogether. Although this is very powerful, it takes a lot of work to set up, and it's usually easier to use local port forwarding for the specific sites you want to access.

Port-forwarding is a widely supported technique and a feature found in all major SSH clients and servers, although not all clients do it the same way. For help on using a specific client, consult the client's documentation. For example, the PuTTY manual has a section on port forwarding in PuTTY.

To use port forwarding, you need to make sure port forwarding is enabled in your server. You also need to tell your client the source and destination port numbers to use. If you're using local or remote forwarding, you need to tell your client the destination server. If you're using dynamic port forwarding, you need to configure your programs to use a SOCKS proxy server. Again, exactly how to do this depends on which SSH client you use, so you may need to consult your documentation.

Local Port Forwarding

Local port forwarding lets you connect from your local computer to another server. To use local port forwarding, you need to know your destination server, and two port numbers. You should already know your destination server, and for basic uses of port forwarding, you can usually use the port numbers in Wikipedia's list of TCP and UDP port numbers.

For example, say you wanted to connect from your laptop to http://www.ubuntuforums.org using an SSH tunnel. You would use source port number 8080 (the alternate http port), destination port 80 (the http port), and destination server www.ubuntuforums.org. :

Where <host> should be replaced by the name of your laptop. The -L option specifies local port forwarding. For the duration of the SSH session, pointing your browser at http://localhost:8080/ would send you to http://www.ubuntuforums.org/.

In the above example, we used port 8080 for the source port. Ports numbers less than 1024 or greater than 49151 are reserved for the system, and some programs will only work with specific source ports, but otherwise you can use any source port number. For example, you could do:

This would forward two connections, one to www.ubuntuforums.org, the other to www.ubuntu.com. Pointing your browser at http://localhost:8080/ would download pages from www.ubuntuforums.org, and pointing your browser to http://localhost:12345/ would download pages from www.ubuntu.com.

The destination server can even be the same as the SSH server. For example, you could do:

This would forward connections to the shared desktop on your SSH server (if one had been set up). Connecting an SSH client to localhost port 5900 would show the desktop for that computer. The word 'localhost' is the computer equivalent of the word 'yourself', so the SSH server on your laptop will understand what you mean, whatever the computer's actual name.

Remote Port Forwarding

Remote port forwarding lets you connect from the remote SSH server to another server. To use remote port forwarding, you need to know your destination server, and two port numbers. You should already know your destination server, and for basic uses of port forwarding, you can usually use the port numbers in Wikipedia's list of TCP and UDP port numbers.

For example, say you wanted to let a friend access your remote desktop, using the command-line SSH client. You would use port number 5900 (the first VNC port), and destination server localhost:

The -R option specifies remote port forwarding. For the duration of the SSH session, Joe would be able to access your desktop by connecting a VNC client to port 5900 on his computer (if you had set up a shared desktop).

Dynamic Port Forwarding

Dynamic port forwarding turns your SSH client into a SOCKS proxy server. SOCKS is a little-known but widely-implemented protocol for programs to request any Internet connection through a proxy server. Each program that uses the proxy server needs to be configured specifically, and reconfigured when you stop using the proxy server.

For example, say you wanted Firefox to connect to every web page through your SSH server. First you would use dynamic port forwarding with the default SOCKS port:

The -D option specifies dynamic port forwarding. 1080 is the standard SOCKS port. Although you can use any port number, some programs will only work if you use 1080. -C enables compression, which speeds the tunnel up when proxying mainly text-based information (like web browsing), but can slow it down when proxying binary information (like downloading files).

Next you would tell Firefox to use your proxy:

• go to Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Network -> Connection -> Settings...

• check 'Manual proxy configuration'
• make sure 'Use this proxy server for all protocols' is cleared
• clear 'HTTP Proxy', 'SSL Proxy', 'FTP Proxy', and 'Gopher Proxy' fields
• enter '127.0.0.1' for 'SOCKS Host'
• enter '1080' (or whatever port you chose) for Port.

You can also set Firefox to use the DNS through that proxy, so even your DNS lookups are secure:

• Type in about:config in the Firefox address bar
• Find the key called 'network.proxy.socks_remote_dns' and set it to true

The SOCKS proxy will stop working when you close your SSH session. You will need to change these settings back to normal in order for Firefox to work again.

To make other programs use your SSH proxy server, you will need to configure each program in a similar way.

SSH can also forward graphical applications over a network, although it can take some work and extra software to forward programs to Windows or Mac OS.

Single Applications

If you are logging in from a Unix-like operating system, you can forward single applications over SSH very easily, because all Unix-like systems share a common graphics layer called X11. This even works under Mac OS X, although you will need to install and start the X11 server before using SSH.

To forward single applications, connect to your system using the command-line, but add the -X option to forward X11 connections:

Once the connection is made, type the name of your GUI program on the SSH command-line:

Your program will start as normal, although you might find it's a little slower than it would be if it were running locally. The trailing & means that the program should run in 'background mode', so you can start typing new commands in straight away, rather than waiting for your program to finish.

If you only want to run a single command, you can log in like this:

That will run Firefox, then exit when it finishes. See the SSH manual page for information about -f and -T.

If you start an application and it complains that it cannot find the display, try installing the xauth package from the Main repository (click here to install xauth). Xauth is installed by default with desktop installations but not server installations.

Ssh X Forwarding

If you suspect that programs are running slowly because of a lack of bandwith, you can turn SSH compression on with the -C option:

Using -fTXC here is identical to -f -T -X -C.

Nested Windows

Xephyr is a program that gives you an X server within your current server. It's available in the xserver-xephyr package in the Main repository (click here to install xserver-xephyr).

Two ssh forwarded desktops on dual monitors, click to enlarge

Setting up Xephyr was explained briefly in the Ubuntu forums.

To get the most out of port forwarding, it's helpful to know a bit about how the Internet works.

The Internet assigns computers virtual 'ports', a bit like the USB ports on the back of your computer:

To let a digital camera share pictures with your PC, you connect the USB port on the camera to any USB port on the PC. The computer then talks to the camera about your photos, and shows you the result.

To let a web server share pages with your PC, you connect the web server port on the server to any Internet port on the PC. The computer then talks to the server about your page, and shows you the result.

Unlike a USB port, there is no physical component to an Internet port. There's no actual wire, or actual hole on the back of your computer. It's all just messages being sent over the Internet. Like other 'virtual' computer concepts, Internet ports are just an analogy that help to explain what your computer is doing. Sometimes, that analogy breaks down:

There are two types of Internet port: normal 'TCP' ports and strange 'UDP' ports (which won't be covered here).

Unlike USB ports, every computer has exactly 65,535 numbered TCP ports, some of which have a special purpose. For example, port number 80 is your web server port, so your web browser knows it should connect to port number 80 in order to download a web page.

Connections between Internet ports can be patched together, so a connection from computer A to computer B on port 12,345 could be patched through to port number 80 on computer C. This is known as port forwarding.

If you get a message like this when you try to forward a port:

then someone is already listening on that port number. You won't be able to listen on that port until the other person has finished with it.

If forwarding doesn't seem to work, even though you didn't get a warning message, then your SSH server might have disabled forwarding. To check, do the following:

If you see something like this:

then forwarding is disabled on your server. See the SSH configuration page for more information.