CheckPoint SSH access with Public Key

Configure access to CheckPoint appliances (R80 and R81) using SSH and public key authentication

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Note for R81 Quantum Spark: SMB appliances running R81.10.xx, tested on Quantum Spark 1500 R81, see my Quantum Spark SMB SSH access with Public Key post;

Contents:

The information here is compiled from sk106836, sk95890, sk167199, sk162794, sk106031 and sk179517 and tested on Gaia Embedded R80.20.40 and Gaia R81.10.

Note: This document uses ~/keys as the directory that holds your keys. Name your keys accordingly, ckpRSAAccessKey is just an example.

Supported algorithms

For R80 and R81, to find supported ciphers and HMACs use:

dbclient -c help
dbclient -m help

On R80.20 SMBs supported ciphers and HMACs are:

Available ciphers: aes128-ctr,aes256-ctr,aes128-cbc,aes256-cbc
Available MACs: hmac-sha1,hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512

At least since R80.20.40 you can use ssh -Q commands:

[Expert@...]# ssh -Q cipher
# ...
aes256-gcm@openssh.com
chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com

[Expert@...]# ssh -Q mac
# ...
hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com
hmac-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com

[Expert@...]# ssh -Q key
ssh-ed25519
sk-ssh-ed25519@openssh.com
ssh-rsa
# ...

[Expert@...]# ssh -Q kex
# ...
curve25519-sha256
curve25519-sha256@libssh.org

Configure algorithms

Note: Gaia Embedded on SMB does not allow to change the supported list of cryptographic algorithms. The weak ciphers cannot be disabled (see sk162794).

From R80.20 (see sk106031):

  • edit /etc/ssh/ssh_config
  • edit /etc/ssh/ssh_config
  • restart the SSH server with service sshd restart

From R80.40 jumbo 83 (see sk106031 and sk179517):

  • edit /etc/ssh/templates/sshd_config.templ
  • run run /bin/sshd_template_xlate < /config/active
  • restart the SSH server with service sshd restart

From R81.10 you can also use in Clish (see sk179517):

  • show ssh server ...
  • set ssh server ...

Copy a key to an appliance

You can change the content of the file on the appliance but if you use a user with the Bash shell this should work:

cat ~/keys/ckpRSAAccessKey.pub | ssh user@IP_Address_of_CheckPoint -T "cat >> /storage/test_file"

SSH authentication with RSA key, Gaia Embedded since R77.20

Create a RSA key pair on a Linux host or on the Management server:

mkdir -p ~/keys
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ~/keys/ckpRSAAccessKey -C ""

Copy the content of the ckpRSAAccessKey.pub to the appliance’s /storage/authorized_keys file. Create the file /storage/authorized_keys if it does not exists.

Edit /pfrm2.0/bin/sshd and add before the line:

start_cpwd.sh

these commands:

chown root /
mkdir -p /.ssh
chmod 600 /storage/authorized_keys
ln -sf /storage/authorized_keys /.ssh/authorized_keys

Restart the SSH service with:

killall dropbear ; sshd
# or
nohup sh -c 'killall dropbear && sshd'

SSH authentication with RSA key, Gaia since R77.20

Create a RSA key pair on a Linux host or on the Management server:

mkdir -p ~/keys
# use this until R80.40
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ~/keys/ckpRSAAccessKey -C ""
# use this since R80.40
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4192 -f ~/keys/ckpRSAAccessKey -C ""

Connect to the appliance as the user for which you want to add the key then create or check the required files and directories:

mkdir -p ~/.ssh
chmod u=rwx,g=,o=  ~/.ssh
touch ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
touch ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2
chmod u=rw,g=,o=  ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
chmod u=rw,g=,o=  ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

Add the content of the public key file ~/keys/ckpRSAAccessKey.pub to both the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 files.

Use another shell to test the authentication with the key:

ssh -i ~/keys/ckpRSAAccessKey IP_Address_of_CheckPoint

SSH authentication with ed25519 key, Gaia since R80.40

This section differs from the previous only in the key creation process:

# create a ed25519 key pair
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/keys/ckpAccessKey -C ""

SSH Config records

Add the key to the config records for your hosts. For more information see SSH Config File post.

PuTTY

For PuTTY on Windows see sk98774 Configure PuTTY to use RSA Authentication when connecting to Gaia OS machine.