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7318 Model S20 Guide and Reference

Chapter 9. 7318 Model S20 Security

The 7318 provides three variations of password protection. The first is a simple password-protection system based on user names similar to that found on most UNIX systems. It is relatively easy to administer and is entirely self-contained on the 7318.

The second variation is a remote user/password system where the password database is located in a central location to service a collection of 7318 units on the network. This allows users to login to any of the 7318 servers and use the same password. This simplifies system administration as well, since there is only one place the system administration activities need to be performed.

The third variation is based on the Kerberos security system. This system is more complicated to administer but supports encrypted rlogin sessions for secure communications with a host. The encrypted rlogin version of the Model S20 software is not available in all countries.

These three variations are all enabled and disabled in the configuration file. All three variations are mutually exclusive.

To use the basic and remote password systems, users and system administrators need to perform certain tasks. These tasks are documented in the following sections.

Using Local Password Protection

When local password protection is enabled, the command shell requests the user's login ID and password before it accepts any other commands.

Prerequisites

The administrator must have enabled password protection in the configuration file and added user names to the system.

Login to a 7318 Using Local Password Protection

  1. Turn on your terminal or dial in to the 7318 if you are using modems. Instead of the >> (double redirect) prompt, you will see the following prompt:
    login:
    Type the user name that you have been assigned by the system administrator and press Enter.

  2. If the name you type is registered on the system, the system will return with a password prompt:
    password:
    Type your password and press Enter. The password will not be echoed to your screen. If you type the correct password, the system will return with the >> prompt. If you type an incorrect user name or password, the 7318 will report an error and request your login ID again.

When you are finished using the 7318, you should end your session. You can do this in several ways:

Changing Your Local Password

Users that are logged in to the 7318 can change their passwords at any time. The passwords are stored in nonvolatile storage on the 7318 and never go out on the Ethernet. They cannot be read by anyone, including the system administrator. If you forget your password, the system administrator will have to delete your user name from the 7318 and add it back again with a new password.

  1. Log in to the 7318 command shell and at the >> prompt, type the following command and press Enter:
    password 

  2. The system will return with a password prompt:
    Password: 

  3. Type a new password and press Enter. The password can be up to 16 characters and can include any ASCII-printable character.

  4. After typing your new password, the system will ask you to type it again to make sure you did not mistype it:
    Retype password: 

  5. Type your new password again exactly as before and press Enter.

  6. If the two passwords match, the system will return with the >> prompt and you must use the new password on future logins. If the passwords did not match, the system will report an error and your password will not be changed.

Enabling Local Password Protection

To use local password protection, the system administrator must enable passwords by modifying the configuration file. Prior to enabling password protection, the password command reports an error if it is used.

Prerequisites

  1. You must be in password privilege mode on the 7318.

  2. You must have root user authority.

Enable Local Password Protection

  1. Use a text editor to modify the configuration file for your 7318.

  2. Locate the [Command] section.

  3. Change the passwords entry from zero to one:
    passwords=1
    Note: If you are using Kerberos password authentication, the passwords entry should be set to 0. Local password protection is incompatible with Kerberos password authentication.

  4. Save the file and exit the editor.

  5. Use the reboot command from the 7318 command shell or power-cycle the 7318 to load the modified configuration file.

The command shell admin password is the same password as the BIOS admin password. You can change it using either the BIOS commands or the following command shell procedure.

Note: When you change the command shell admin password, you simultaneously change the BIOS admin password.

Change the Administrator Password

  1. At the >> prompt in a command shell, type the admin command and press Enter. The system will respond with a password prompt:
    password:

  2. Type the current administrator password and press Enter. If you have not previously set the admin password using either this procedure or the BIOS procedure, the initial password is null.

    If you type the correct password, the command shell prompt will change to #>> (pound sign, double redirect). If you do not, it will report an error and you will need to repeat the admin command.

  3. When you get the #>> prompt, type:
    password -a admin 
    The system will return with a password prompt:
    Password: 

  4. Type a new password and press Enter. The new password can be up to 12 characters long and can include any ASCII-printable character.

  5. After typing your new password, the system will ask you to type it again to make sure you did not mistype it:
    Retype password: 
    Type your new password again exactly as before and press Enter.

  6. If the two passwords match, the system will return with the #>> prompt and you must use the new password on any future admin commands. If the passwords did not match, the system will report an error, and your admin password will not be changed.
    Note: If you forget your admin password, contact your technical support for a procedure that will completely reset your 7318.

After local password protection is enabled, the administrator will have to add user names before users can log in. The user name admin is always available and cannot be deleted. To add new users, the administrator uses a variant of the password command that can only be executed in administrative mode

Add a User to the Local Password Database

  1. At the #>> prompt in a command shell, type the following command and press Enter:
    password -a User
    where User is a user name, such as mary, to be added to the system. User names can be up to 12 characters long and can contain any ASCII-printable characters but should not contain spaces or control characters.

    The system will return with a password prompt:

    Password: 

  2. Type an initial password for the user and press Enter. The password can be up to 16 characters long and can include any ASCII-printable character.

  3. After typing your initial password, the system will ask you to type it again to make sure you did not mistype it:
    Retype password: 
    Type the initial password again exactly as before and press Enter.

  4. If the two passwords match, the system will return with the #>> prompt. The user can now login to the 7318.

    If the passwords did not match, the system will report an error and the user will not be added to the database. If the user name was already in the database, the system will also report an error and the existing password will not be changed. Similarly, if the password database is full, an error will be reported and the user will not be added.

If you want to remove access to a 7318 by any users, remove their names from the password database. Again, this can only be done from administrative mode.

Remove a User from the Local or Remote Password Database

  1. At the #>> prompt in a command shell, type the following command and press Enter:
    password -r User
    where the User parameter specifies a user name such as mary to be removed from the system.

  2. If the user is in the database, that name is removed. If the name is not present, the system will report an error.

The number of users supported in the local password database depends on the length of the names used but may be as few as 48 users. The system administrator should remove users when they no longer need access to the 7318. To keep track of who is currently in the database, the system administrator can list the users.

If remote passwords are used, and the 7318 cannot reach the password servers, the 7318 will notify you of this and ask for a login again. You should contact your system administrator if this happens.

List Users to the Local Password Database

At the #> prompt in a command shell, type the following command and press Enter:

show Users

Limiting Login Attempts

Unauthorized access to systems, especially for those systems with modems, should be discouraged. The public telephone network is a prime entryway into many systems with modems. With some automation, trial and error can often allow access to computer systems. To discourage this activity on the 7318, the logintime and loginretries parameters can be set so the 7318 hangs up after a predetermined number of retries or when a timeout value is reached without a successful login attempt. These parameters are placed in the [PortNN] section for each port that requires them.

[Port03]
...
logintime=120
loginretries=3
...

This entry restricts the time to login to 2 minutes, after which the 7318 also disconnects from the mode.

Enabling Remote Password Protection

To use remote password protection, the system administrator must enable passwords by modifying the configuration file. Prior to enabling, the password command reports an error if used.

Prerequisites

  1. You must be in password privilege mode on the 7318.

  2. You must have root user authority.

Enable Remote Password Protection

  1. Use a text editor to modify the configuration file for your 7318.

  2. Locate the [Command] section in the configuration file.

  3. Change the Passwords entry to remotex.
    Passwords=remotex

  4. Locate the [PasswordServer] section of the configuration file.

  5. Fill in the PrimaryServer entry with an ethernet address of the host that is running the remote password server application.
    PrimaryServer=204.30.137.99

  6. Fill in the PrimaryPort entry with the TCP port number that the application is listening on. For the default of 5400, you would enter:
    PrimaryPort=5400
    If you use a port other than the default port, you must supply that port number when you start the remote password server program on your host.

  7. Fill in the BackupServer entry with the internet address of the host that is also running the remote password server application. Do this only if you want to run a backup server. Remember that you keep the password databases for both servers the same.
    BackupServer=204.30.137.104

  8. Fill in the BackupPort entry with the TCP port number the application is listening on.
    PrimaryPort=5400

  9. Save the modified configuration file.

  10. Reboot the 7318.

  11. As the root user, create the password database table by entering:
    rpasswd
    You get a message:
    Base Password Table Created
    Usage: rpasswd -a/r/i user
    This step initializes the password database.

  12. Start the password server daemon by entering:
    passserv&
    By entering passserv&, the password server daemon listens for requests on the default TCP port of 5400. To start the daemon on a different port, specify it as the first parameter.
    passserv 8899 &

  13. Add the passserv command to the /etc/inittab file, so the password server will start automatically whenever the system boots.

Add a User to the Remote Password Database

  1. At the host command prompt, type the rpasswd command with the -a flag.
    rpasswd -a fred
    The system returns with the password prompt.
    Password:

  2. Type the new password and press Enter. The user's password can be up to 16 characters in length and can include any ASCII-printable character. The system responds with a confirmation prompt.
    Retype password:

  3. Type the new password again exactly as before, and press Enter. If the two passwords match, the host returns a shell prompt again.

Changing Your Remote Password

  1. Login to the host system on which the remote password server is running.

  2. At a shell prompt, issue the rpasswd command. The system will return with a password entry prompt.
    password:

  3. Type a new password and press Enter. Your password can be up to 16 characters and can include any ASCII-printable character. The system will respond with another password prompt to verify your password.
    retype password:

  4. Retype your password exactly as before and press Enter. If the two passwords match, the system will return with a shell prompt. If the passwords fail to match, the system will report an error, and your password will not be changed.

Remove a User from the Remote Password Database

At the host command prompt, type the rpasswd command with the -r flag and the user name of a single user.

rpasswd -r fred

To remove all the users in the database, enter:

rpasswd -i

This command resets the password database to its original start.

passserv Command

Syntax

passserv TcpPort

Description

This command runs as a daemon and listens on a TCP port for password authentication requests. When received, it authenticates the password and returns a response. The database of userids and passwords is maintained by the rpasswd command. The only parameter is optional:

TcpPort Specifies the TCP port on which this daemon listens for remote password authentication requests. If the parameter is not specified, the default port is 5400.

For more information, see "[PasswordServer] Section" .

rpasswd Command

Syntax

rpasswd -a User -r User -i

Description

The rpasswd command has three options for initializing and maintaining the remote password database. All the parameters require root authority to operate but can be invoked by a general user to change the password. The parameters are as follows:

-a User Used by a system administrator to add a user to the password database. The administrator is prompted for the password and prompted to confirm it. The password can be up to 16 characters; all must be ASCII-printable characters.
-r User Used by a system administrator to remove a user/password from the password database.
-i Creates the password database the first time or resets it to its initial state and all existing users are deleted.
NULL If no parameters are specified, the NULL parameter is used by a general user to change the password for the userid. A confirmation is requested before it is accepted. The same restrictions apply as when the user was created initially.
Note: The remote userid/password that is being changed is the same as the userid that must login to the password server system. The administrator cannot change a password for another user. The userid must be removed and added again in order to reset the password.

Configuring Kerberos for the 7318

Kerberos is a network authentication system for use on physically insecure networks. It allows entities communicating over networks to prove their identity to each other while preventing eavesdropping or replay attacks. It also provides for data stream integrity (detection of modification) and secrecy (preventing unauthorized reading) using cryptography systems such as Data Encryption Standard (DES).

Kerberos works by providing principals (users or services) with tickets that they can use to identify themselves to other principals and secret cryptographic keys for secure communication with other principals. A ticket is a sequence of a few hundred bytes. These tickets can then be embedded in virtually any other network protocol, thereby allowing the processes implementing that protocol to be certain of the identity of the principals involved.

Before you attempt to enable Kerberos security, you need to be fully familiar with the concepts involved and with the overall layout of the secure network into which the 7318 is being installed. It is strongly recommended that you get a copy of the Kerberos Version 5 documentation that comes with your host system and study it before attempting to turn on the Kerberos security feature.

Kerberos functionality is enabled by modifying entries in the [Kerberos] section in the configuration file. The enable, realm, and authorizedServer entries are all required. If the 7318 is already running, you can enable Kerberos using the set kerberos on command in the command processor. Refer to "7318 Command Session" for more information on the command shell set command.

The [Kerberos] section defines parameters needed for the Kerberos security feature. The entries are:

enable=1/0 Enables (1) or disables (0) Kerberos security. The default value for this entry is 0 (disable).
Note: If you set enable=1 to enable Kerberos password authentication, ensure that the passwords entry in the [Command] section is set to 0. Local password protection is incompatible with Kerberos password authentication.
realm=RealmName Specifies the name of the realm that this 7318 is in.
authorizedServer=IPAddress Defines the IP address of the authorization server which is used to authenticate Kerberos users.
clockSync=Value Defines how often the 7318 will resynchronize its system clock with the authorization server when the Kerberos feature is enabled. Value is an integer in minutes. The default value for this entry is 480 (8 hours).
serverPort=N Defines the TCP port for the authorization server. The default value for this entry is 750.
kloginPort=N Defines the TCP port for nonencrypted Kerberos rlogin. The default value for this entry is 543.
ekloginPort=N Defines the TCP port for encrypted Kerberos rlogin. The default value for this entry is 2105.
ticketLife=N Designates the ticket life in minutes. The default value for this entry is 480 (8 hours).
renTicketLife=N Defines the renewable ticket life where N is in minutes. Renewable tickets expire after the time specified by the ticketLife entry has elapsed, but they can be renewed by the authentication server until the time specified by the renTicketLife entry has elapsed at which time a new ticket must be obtained. The default value for this entry is 7200 (5 days).

The [Kerberos] section of the configuration file might look like the following:

[Kerberos]
enable=1
realm=rnd.bigcorp.com
authorizedServer=128.219.24.140
clockSync=480
serverPort=750
kloginPort=543
ekloginPort=2105
ticketLife=480
renTicketLife=7200

Kerberos Tickets

When the Kerberos security feature is enabled, the terminal commands available to the user are restricted. These restrictions are intended to provide a secure networking environment. Such an environment prevents anyone who is not properly authorized from accessing the host computers that are connected to the local area network to which the 7318 is attached. In addition, the Kerberos security feature provides the capability to encrypt all data that is passed via the rlogin session using DES encryption.

Security Tickets

In Kerberos security, every participating application must obtain a security ticket to authenticate a user who requests services before allowing network activity. These tickets are time-based and have an expiration date. Before any network applications can obtain tickets, a master ticket called the ticket-granting ticket (TGT) must be obtained. The command shell is responsible for obtaining the TGT.

Since Kerberos security tickets are time-dependent, it is very important that the clocks on the 7318 and the Kerberos authentication server are synchronized. If the two system's concept of time varies more than one or two minutes, Kerberos will not work and all network resources will become unavailable to the users.

To prevent the preceding situation, the 7318 sends Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) time stamp requests to the Kerberos authentication server and updates the 7318 system clock to match the time stamp sent back by the Kerberos server. These ICMP time stamps are sent to the server every 8 hours to keep the 7318's system clock from drifting too far out of sync.

This process of synchronizing the system clock is performed at boot time and every 8 hours thereafter. The period of 8 hours is used because most Kerberos tickets have a maximum life span of 8 hours; however, the frequency of time synchronization may be changed by the system administrator.

Ticket-Granting Tickets

Before a user can access any network applications or resources, a TGT must be obtained. Ticket-granting tickets are obtained during the login process in the command shell. When a user logs into a command session, the user name is used to obtain a valid TGT from the Kerberos authentication server and that TGT is validated with the user's password.

Once a TGT is obtained, the user is logged in. The TGT is passed to any application the user starts so that the application may obtain its own ticket. Ticket-granting tickets have a maximum life span of 8 hours, after which the user must log in again.

Application Tickets

When a user starts an application, the application must obtain an application ticket from the Kerberos authentication server before any network activity can be performed by the user. In order for an application to obtain its own ticket, it must have the user's TGT. This is passed to it by the command shell when the application starts up. The application must then send the TGT to the Kerberos authentication server to obtain its own ticket.

If either the server is down or the server denies the application a ticket, then the application must either quit or refuse any network access to the user. Application tickets have a maximum life span of 8 hours, after which the user must restart the application.

Kerberos Rlogin

The Kerberos remote login is very similar to the standard rlogin command except that instead of the $HOME/.rhosts file, it uses Kerberos authentication to determine the authorization to use a remote account.

Users may have a private authorization list in the .klogin file in their login directory.

Each line in this file should contain a Kerberos principal name of the form Principal_Instance@Realm. If the originating user is authenticated to one of the principals named in the .klogin file, access is granted to the account. The principal AccountName.@LocalRealm is granted access if there is no .klogin file. Otherwise a login and password will be prompted for on the remote machine as with the login command. To avoid some security problems, the .klogin file must be owned by the remote user.

If there is some problem in gathering the Kerberos authentication information, an error message is printed, and the standard nonsecure rlogin is run in place of the Kerberos rlogin.

When Kerberos is enabled, the rlogin command supports the following additional command line options:

-k Requests the rlogin command to obtain tickets for the remote host in the realm specified by the Realm parameter instead of the remote host's realm.
-x Turns on DES encryption for all data passed via the rlogin session. This significantly reduces response time and significantly increases CPU utilization.
Notes:
  1. Use of the -x flag significantly impacts response time and increases CPU usage.

  2. The -x flag is not available on 7318s sold outside the United States and Canada.

Using PAP with PPP

For a discussion of the PAP security mechanism, see "PPP Security" .

Audit Trail

The 7138 allows an audit trail to be placed into the system log area. This log can be examined either using the cnsview command or by having a host initiate a TCP/IP connection to a special logging port on the 7318.

The audit trail is enabled by setting the Log parameter in the [Command] section of the configuration as follows:

Log= EventList

Where EventList is a comma-separated list of the user events that are to be logged. The events that can be logged are:

Event Name Events to be Logged
login User login, logout, and invalid passwords.
logins User login, logout, and invalid passwords, but not logging incorrect password strings.
admin All commands entered when the command shell is in administrative mode.
application All commands in all command sessions.
security Illegal access to the internet.

The log entries that are generated appear in the following format:

Type   Timestamp   Module   Flags   String
Type Specified as E, which is the only event type defined currently.
Timestamp Specified as HHHH:MM:SS.XX NNNNNNNNNN, which is hours, minutes, seconds, hundreths of a second, and nanoseconds.
Flags Specified as 0, indicating there are no flags available.
String Describes the event.

Additional message text may follow the initial event entry providing more detailed information.

For example, the following configuration file entry turns on the audit trail and logs events for all login and logout activity:

[Command]
log=logins,admin

With this entry, the log would contain entries like:

E 0001:10:22.44 0000000003  cmd023     0 User logged in.
        logid:              uid=johndoe, port=03
E 0001:10:22.44 0000000003  cmd023     0 User logged out.
        logid:              uid=johndoe, port-03, connect=560
E 0001:10:22.44 0000000003  cmd023     0 Invalid password entered.
        logid:              uid=johndoe, port=03, (bad password)

Accessing the 7318 Log

The log entries can be read in one of three ways:

  1. Use the show command from the command shell.
    show Log

  2. Use the cnsview command with 'show Log' from the host.
    cnsview -c 'show Log' /dev/cns03

  3. Use a reverse telnet session from the host to the 7318. All log entries will be transmitted to the host on this connection. The [Telnetd] section parameters should look like the following:
    device=LOGCOM
    port=0
    tcpport=pppp
    Where pppp is the TCP port number for this connection.
    tcpport=5500
    From the host, you can now connect to this TCP port. The stdout from the telnet command contains the original content of the 7318 log, as well as real-time entries for the duration of the connection.

    For example, the following command would cause the output of the log to be printed, as well as placed into a disk file:

    telnet 33.44.55.66 5500 | tee /tmp/cns01.log

Host Access Control

Internet security is implemented using the concept of a security filter. There are two types of security filters supported on the 7318. The first involves address filters for the internet addresses. The second is a switch to disallow telnet access to nonstandard TCP ports.

Address filters are either globally enabled or disabled. When enabled, the filter applies to all usages of IP addresses, including application connection establishment and ping.

Note: SLIP, CSLIP, and PPP are not affected by address filters. Only commands run from s20 command sessions are affected.

Filtering can be done by only allowing access to host addresses or subnets on the "allowed host" list, or by denying access host addresses and subnets on the "disallowed hosts" list. The access lists are placed in the 7318 configuration file in either the [Allowedhosts] section or the [Disallowedhosts] section.

You can specify either the IP address of the host, the name of the host, or both. If only one item is supplied, the 7318 will go to the network nameserver to complete the access tables.

Note: If the 7318 requires resolution of the access tables, you will not be able to access the network until resolution is completed. Normally, this happens very quickly; however, if the nameserver is unreachable and the 7318 is rebooted, you will not be able to gain access to the network until the nameserver becomes available again.

The security filters allow two extensions to normal internet addressing. The first extension is to put an entry in the allowed host list of 255.255.255.255. The address will never match a valid host or internet address, thereby making access to all hosts illegal. If the desired S20 configuration is for SLIP or PPP only, you can make telnet/rlogin not work at all by disallowing all hosts in this manner.

The second extension is to regard the use of 0 for part of the host address as a wildcard, which will match any value for that segment of the address. This is useful for allowing access to an entire subnet. Any specific hosts may be disallowed by placing their specific address in the [Disallowedhosts] section. This is the only situation where having an entry in both the [Allowedhosts] and [Disallowedhosts] sections makes sense.

Telnet Port Disabling

Allowing telnet access to TCP ports other than the default port can be a security exposure. To disable to the Port parameter on the telnet command, place the following entry in the [TCP] section of the configuration file:

allowportswitch=0

The 7318 must be rebooted for the change to take effect.


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