Tag Archives: SSH

How to disconnect SSH user

Let’s say that several users are connected through SSH.

First look at the list of online users:

w

Suppose the following information is displayed (where test is the user’s login):

USER     TTY      FROM             LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
test     tty1                      11:20    1:07   0.03s  0.03s -bash
test     pts/0    192.168.1.5      11:21   13.00s  0.02s  0.02s -bash
test     pts/1    192.168.1.3      11:21    0.00s  0.02s  0.00s w

tty1 – it is a client logged in locally, that is, it is located near the computer.
pts/1 – judging for example on IP and WHAT, let’s assume that it’s us, accordingly pts/0 is the client of which we want to disconnect.

See the list of processes and their PID:

ps faux |grep sshd

At me it was displayed:

root       946  0.0  0.5  65508  5368 ?        Ss   12:00   0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd -D
root      1147  0.0  0.6  92828  6920 ?        Ss   12:01   0:00  \_ sshd: test [priv]
test      1178  0.0  0.3  92828  3384 ?        S    12:01   0:00  |   \_ sshd: test@pts/0
root      1192  0.0  0.6  92828  6592 ?        Ss   12:02   0:00  \_ sshd: test [priv]
test      1223  0.0  0.3  92828  3532 ?        S    12:02   0:00      \_ sshd: test@pts/1
test      1248  0.0  0.0  15468   956 pts/1    S+   12:25   0:00              \_ grep --color=auto sshd

We find test@pts/0 and accordingly 1178 is the required PID.

We terminate the process by specifying its ID, after which the user will immediately disconnect:

sudo kill -9 1178

See also my articles:
Configuring SSH session timeout
Installing and Configuring SSH

Email notification about each SSH connection

Here are a few ways to receive e-mail notifications about someone connecting to the server via SSH.

FIRST METHOD:
With a text editor, for example nano, open the file /etc/ssh/sshrc (in the nano editor CTRL+X to exit, y/n and Enter to save or discard changes):

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshrc

And add the following code to it:

ip=`echo $SSH_CONNECTION | cut -d " " -f 1`
logger -t ssh-wrapper $USER login from $ip
(echo "Subject:login($ip) on server"; echo "User $USER just logged in from $ip";) | sendmail -f server@example.com -t your-email@example.com &

You do not need to restart SSH, the notifications should already come in when connecting.

SECOND METHOD:
Add the specified lines to the config /etc/rsyslog.conf (before each line commented the essence, this code will send messages about failed connections):

# Connect the messaging module
$ModLoad ommail
# Specify the address of the mail server
$ActionMailSMTPServer mail.domain.com
# Specify the email from which messages will be sent
$ActionMailFrom rsyslog@domain.com
# Specify the email to which messages will be sent
$ActionMailTo test@domain.com
# Specify the subject of the message
$template mailSubject,"SSH Invalid User %hostname%"
# Specify the content of the message
$template mailBody,"RSYSLOG\r\nmsg='%msg%'"
$ActionMailSubject mailSubject
# Specify in seconds how often messages can be sent
$ActionExecOnlyOnceEveryInterval 10
# If the log contains the characters in parentheses, then we send a message
if $msg contains 'Invalid user' then :ommail:;mailBody

The same way of sending via rsyslog, but notifications of successful connections are sent (code without comments as above):

$ActionMailSMTPServer mail.domain.com
$ActionMailFrom rsyslog@domain.com
$ActionMailTo test@domain.com
$template mailSubject,"SSH Accepted pass %hostname%"
$template mailBody,"RSYSLOG\r\nmsg='%msg%'"
$ActionMailSubject mailSubject
$ActionExecOnlyOnceEveryInterval 10
if $msg contains 'Accepted password' then :ommail:;mailBody

As a result, if the connection to the SSH server is successful or not successful, messages will be sent to the e-mail. In a similar way, you can announce to email and other events that are logged via rsyslog.

Monitoring the number of Ubiquiti sector clients by SSH from Zabbix

On the test I’ll give an example of getting the number of clients connected to the usual sectoral antenna Ubiquiti AirMax Rocket M5.
We will receive the data via SSH.

To test once we connect to the device (the first time when connecting, type yes and press enter):

sudo -u zabbix ssh -p 22 admin@192.168.0.55

Now in Zabbix we add the data element to the template or host, for example with the name “Template Ubiquiti Rocket M5 Sector”:

Name: any
Type: SSH agent
Key: ssh.run[clients,,22,utf8]
Authentication method: Password
Username: NAME
Password: PASSWORD
Executed script: the command executed on the device (see below)

Example of the command displayed the number of connected clients:

wstalist |grep "mac" |wc -l

Accordingly, we create a graph for the data element, as well as the trigger:

Name: On the sector antenna {HOST.NAME} > 40 clients
Expression: {Template Ubiquiti Rocket M5 Sector:ssh.run[clients,,22,utff8].last(#1)}>40

See also:
Configuring SSH checks in Zabbix

How to change the SSH port in Ubuntu

On the test, I change the SSH port in Ubuntu Server 14.0.4 LTS and Ubuntu Server 16.0.4 LTS.

Open the SSH configuration for example in the nano text editor (in nano, press Ctrl+X to exit, y/n to save or cancel changes):

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Find the line “Port 22” and change it for example to “Port 58222“.

To apply the changes, restart ssh (on different systems it can reboot in different ways, so here is a list of possible commands):

sudo service ssh restart
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart
sudo /etc/init.d/sshd restart

After restarting SSH, it will be available on the new port, and the current session on the old one will remain active, so without disconnecting for testing, we will try to connect to the new port, if not, then the firewall is working in the system and you need to allow it in the system, for example in iptables this is done this way (where 58222 is our new port):

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 58222 -j ACCEPT

You can allow iptables to connect to SSH only from the specified range of IP addresses:

sudo iptables -A INPUT -d 192.168.0.0/24 -p tcp --dport 58222 -j ACCEPT

If everything is ok, we connect through a new port and can delete the old iptables rule, for example:

sudo iptables -D INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT

An example of a command to connect from Linux to SSH on a non-standard port:

ssh -p 58222 user@192.168.0.2

View the system on which port and on what network interfaces SSH works like this:

netstat -tulpan | grep ssh