How to create a chroot sftp user with logging on a non-standard home directory

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux

• openssh

Issue

• How to configure chroot sftp users with logging with a non-standard home directory.

Resolution

1. Create the chroot directory including the user's home directory.

# mkdir -p /path/to/directory/user/home

For example:

# mkdir -p /storage/media/myuser/home

In this example, home was used for the name of the directory under the username, but this subdirectory can be named whatever you want.

For example:

# mkdir -p /storage/media/myuser/uploads

1. Create the user and specify the newly created home directory.

# useradd -d /path/to/directory/user/home -M username
# passwd username

For example:

# useradd -d /storage/media/myuser/home -M myuser
# passwd myuser

1. Apply the correct SELinux security context to the home directory.

# chcon -Rv --type=user_home_dir_t /path/to/directory/user/home

For example:

# chcon -Rv --type=user_home_dir_t /storage/media/myuser/home

1. Create a /dev directory in the user directory.

# mkdir /path/to/directory/user

For example:

# mkdir /storage/media/myuser/dev

1. Change the ownership and permissions of the home directory.

# chown username:username /path/to/directory/user/home
# chmod 700 /path/to/directory/user/home

For example:

# chown myuser:myuser /storage/media/myuser/home
# chmod 700 /storage/media/myuser/home

Because of the requirements of chroot, all directories except for the home directory need to be owned by root.

For example:

# ls -l / | grep storage
drwxr-xr-x.   4 root root   32 Sep 22 09:23 storage

# ls -l /storage/
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 20 Sep 22 09:23 media

# ls -l /storage/media/
drwxr-xr-x. 4 root root 29 Sep 22 09:23 myuser

# ls -l /storage/media/myuser/
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root   root   6 Sep 22 09:23 dev
drwx------. 2 myuser myuser 6 Sep 22 09:23 home

If you use a different directory besides home, the same ownership and permissions apply.

# ls -l /storage/media/myuser/
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root   root   6 Sep 22 09:23 dev
drwx------. 2 myuser myuser 6 Sep 22 09:23 uploads

1. Use the ssh-copy-id command to copy the ssh key from a client to the server.

$ ssh-copy-id user@ip_address

For example:

$ ssh-copy-id [email protected]

1. Apply the correct SELinux security context to the .ssh directory.

# chcon -Rv -t ssh_home_t  /path/to/directory/username/home/.ssh/

For example:

# chcon -Rv -t ssh_home_t /storage/media/myuser/home/.ssh/

1. Create an entry in the /etc/rsyslog.conf file to create the log file for the user.

$AddUnixListenSocket /path/to/directory/user/dev/log
input(type="imuxsock" Socket="/path/to/directory/user/dev/log" CreatePath="on")
if $programname == 'internal-sftp' then /var/log/sftp.log
& stop

For example:

$AddUnixListenSocket /storage/media/myuser/dev/log
input(type="imuxsock" Socket="/storage/media/myuser/dev/log" CreatePath="on")
if $programname == 'internal-sftp' then /var/log/sftp.log
& stop

1. Run the bind option of the mount command.

# mount -o bind /dev /path/to/directory/user/dev

For example:

# mount -o bind /dev /storage/media/myuser/dev

1. Apply the correct SELinux label to the log file.

# semanage fcontext -a -t devlog_t /path/to/directory/user/dev/log

For example:

# semanage fcontext -a -t devlog_t /storage/media/myuser/dev/log

1. Edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and add a Match section for the user:

Match User username
ChrootDirectory /path/to/directory/%u
ForceCommand internal-sftp -f AUTH -l VERBOSE -d /UsersSubdirectory

For example:

Match User myuser
ChrootDirectory /storage/media/%u
ForceCommand internal-sftp -f AUTH -l VERBOSE -d /home

1. Enable the SELinux boolean for ssh chroot.

# setsebool -P ssh_chroot_rw_homedirs on
# setsebool -P selinuxuser_use_ssh_chroot on

1. Restart rsyslog and sshd.

# systemctl restart rsyslog
# systemctl restart sshd