SSH hook

Sarus also includes the source code for a hook capable of enabling SSH connections inside containers. The SSH hook is an executable binary that performs different ssh-related operations depending on the argument it receives from the runtime. For the full details about the implementation and inner workings, please refer to the related developer documentation.

Hook installation

The hook is written in C++ and it will be compiled along with Sarus if the ENABLE_SSH=TRUE CMake option has been used when configuring the build (the option is enabled by default). The Sarus installation scripts will also automatically install the hook in the <CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX>/bin directory.

A custom SSH software (statically linked Dropbear) will also be built and installed in the <CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX>/dropbear directory. This directory must satisfy the security requirements for critical files and directories.

Hook configuration

The SSH hook must be configured to run as a prestart hook. It expects to receive its own name/location as the first argument, and the string start-ssh-daemon as positional argument. In addition, the following environment variables must be defined:

  • HOOK_BASE_DIR: Absolute base path to the directory where the hook will create and access the SSH keys. The keys directory will be located in <HOOK_BASE_DIR>/<username>/.oci-hooks/ssh/keys.

  • PASSWD_FILE: Absolute path to a password file (PASSWD(5)). The file is used by the hook to retrieve the username of the user.

  • DROPBEAR_DIR: Absolute path to the location of the custom SSH software.

  • SERVER_PORT_DEFAULT: Default TCP port on which the SSH daemon will listen. This must be an unused port and is typically set to a value different than 22 in order to avoid clashes with an OpenSSH daemon that could be running on the host. This value can be overridden by setting the com.hooks.ssh.port annotation for the container.

    SERVER_PORT_DEFAULT takes precedence over the deprecated SERVER_PORT environment variable, which serves the same purpose. Support for SERVER_PORT will be removed in a future release.

The following optional environment variables can also be defined:

  • OVERLAY_MOUNT_HOME_SSH: When set to False (case-insensitive), an overlay filesystem is not mounted on top of the container's ${HOME}/.ssh directory. By default or when this variable is set to True (case-insensitive), the hook creates an overlay filesystem over the container's ${HOME}/.ssh directory, preventing permanent modifications to its contents. For instance, if the user's host ${HOME}/.ssh directory is bind mounted within the container, the overlay mount ensures that modifications made by the hook (such as adding custom keys and key authorizations) do not propagate back to the host.

    It's important to note that full support for rootless overlay is available only on Linux kernel versions 5.13 or later. Consequently, if the SSH hook is utilized by an unprivileged container runtime, the system's kernel must be sufficiently recent to perform the overlay mount. Setting OVERLAY_MOUNT_HOME_SSH=False enables the hook to operate successfully on systems with kernels older than 5.13.

    Warning

    If OVERLAY_MOUNT_HOME_SSH is set to False AND the user's ${HOME}/.ssh directory is bind mounted from the host into the container, the SSH hook will modify the content of the host directory!

    When using If OVERLAY_MOUNT_HOME_SSH=False it is strongly advised to avoid configuring any automatic mount of ${HOME} into the container. Additionally, it is very important to clearly communicate to users the implications when performing bind mounts related to ${HOME}.

  • JOIN_NAMESPACES: When set to False (case-insensitive), the hook does not actively join the mount and PID namespaces of the container. This is useful when the hook is executed already inside the appropriate namespaces, or when the hook does not have the privileges to join said namespaces. By default, the hook always attempts to join the mount and PID namespaces of the container.

The following is an example of OCI hook JSON configuration file enabling the SSH hook:

{
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "hook": {
        "path": "/opt/sarus/bin/ssh_hook",
        "env": [
            "HOOK_BASE_DIR=/home",
            "PASSWD_FILE=/opt/sarus/etc/passwd",
            "DROPBEAR_DIR=/opt/sarus/dropbear",
            "SERVER_PORT=15263"
        ],
        "args": [
            "ssh_hook",
            "start-ssh-daemon"
        ]
    },
    "when": {
        "annotations": {
            "^com.hooks.ssh.enabled$": "^true$"
        }
    },
    "stages": ["prestart"]
}

Sarus support at runtime

The command sarus ssh-keygen will call the hook without creating a container, passing the appropriate arguments to generate dedicated keys to be used by containers.

The com.hooks.ssh.enabled=true annotation that enables the hook is automatically generated by Sarus if the --ssh command line option is passed to sarus run.

The com.hooks.ssh.pidfile_container annotation allows the user to customize the path to the Dropbear daemon PIDfile inside the container (the default path is /opt/oci-hooks/ssh/dropbear/dropbear.pid).

The com.hooks.ssh.pidfile_host annotation can be used to copy the PIDfile of the Dropbear daemon to the specified path on the host.

The com.hooks.ssh.port annotation can be used to set an arbitrary port for the Dropbear server and client, overriding the value from the SERVER_PORT_DEFAULT environment variable set in the hook configuration file.

Important

The SSH hook currently does not implement a poststop functionality and requires the use of a private PID namespace to cleanup the Dropbear daemon. Thus, the hook currently requires the use of a private PID namespace for the container. Thus, the --ssh option of sarus run implies --pid=private, and is incompatible with the use of --pid=host. If the hook is executed without a separate PID namespace (i.e. in the PID namespace of the host), when the container is stopped the Dropbear daemon will be still alive and the user is responsible for terminating it.