How to Install OpenSSH in Sun Solaris 10 (X86)

OpenSSH is a free opensource version of the SSH connectivity tools. OpenSSH encrypts all traffic (including passwords) to effectively eliminate eavesdropping, connection hijacking, and other attacks unlike Telnet,rlogin or ftp where the data is not encrypted and transmitted in plain text. Additionally, OpenSSH provides secure tunneling capabilities and several authentication methods, and supports all SSH protocol versions.

Solaris 10 is by default installed with SSH server and the clients. However, if you have chosen to ignore SSH at the time of installation or have started the install with a minimal install then you may need to install OpenSSH manually.

The easiest way to install OpenSSH in Sun Solaris is to use the pre-compiled packages from sunfreeware.

The following are the packages that are required to be installed for OpenSSH to work properly in Solaris 10:

OpenSSL (Latest stable: openssl-0.9.8f)

ZLib (Latest stable: zlib-1.2.3)

GNU Compiler Collection (gcc Latest stable: libgcc-3.4.6)

TCPWrapper (Optional tcp_wrappers-7.6)

and OpenSSH itself (Latest Stable: openssh-4.7p1)

To start of, download the packages from the following sunfreeware.com links for Sun Solaris 10 X86 platform:

gcc

ftp://ftp.sunfreeware.com/pub/freeware/intel/10/libgcc-3.4.6-sol10-x86-local.gz

Zlib

ftp://ftp.sunfreeware.com/pub/freeware/intel/10/zlib-1.2.3-sol10-x86-local.gz

OpenSSL

ftp://ftp.sunfreeware.com/pub/freeware/intel/10/openssl-0.9.8f-sol10-x86-local.gz

OpenSSH

ftp://ftp.sunfreeware.com/pub/freeware/intel/10/openssh-4.7p1-sol10-x86-local.gz

Once done, upload the files onto the server so we can start to unzip the files and install.

Unzip and install gcc

solaris10# gunzip libgcc-3.4.6-sol10-x86-local.gz

solaris10# pkgadd -d libgcc-3.4.6-sol10-x86-local

…
…
Installation of <SMCgcc> was successful.

Unzip and install zlib

solaris10# gunzip  zlib-1.2.3-sol10-x86-local.gz

solaris10# pkgadd -d zlib-1.2.3-sol10-x86-local

…
…
Installation of <SMCzlib> was successful.

Unzip and install OpenSSL

solaris10# gunzip openssl-0.9.8f-sol10-x86-local.gz

solaris10# pkgadd -d openssl-0.9.8f-sol10-x86-local
…
…
Installation of <SMCossl> was successful.

Unzip and install OpenSSH

solaris10# gunzip openssh-4.7p1-sol10-x86-local.gz

solaris10# pkgadd -d openssh-4.7p1-sol10-x86-local
…
…
Installation of <SMCossl> was successful.

The packages are now installed.

Create /var/empty directory

solaris10# mkdir /var/empty

Change directory ownership to Root user and sys group

solaris10# chown root:sys /var/empty

Change permissions

solaris10# chmod 755 /var/empty

Add sshd user & group

solaris10# groupadd ssh

solaris10# # useradd -g sshd -c ‘sshd privsep’ -d /var/empty -s /bin/false sshd

Edit the default /usr/local/sshd_config file and make the following changes:

Replace the line

Subsystem sftp /usr/libexec/sftp-server

with

Subsystem sftp /usr/local/libexec/sftp-server

Generate Keys for the server

solaris10# ssh-keygen -t rsa1 -f /usr/local/etc/ssh_host_key -N “”
solaris10# ssh-keygen -t dsa -f /usr/local/etc/ssh_host_dsa_key -N “”
solaris10# ssh-keygen -t rsa -f /usr/local/etc/ssh_host_rsa_key -N “”

Enable OpenSSH server daemon sshd to run at the system startup

Edit /lib/svc/method/sshd file and change the path for the SSH DIR, KEYGEN & the start daemon as follows:

SSHDIR=/usr/local/etc/ssh
KEYGEN=”/usr/local/bin/ssh-keygen -q”

‘start’)
         /usr/local/sbin/sshd

That is it. All done and ready to go. Try connecting to the server using a ssh client like PUTTY.