How do you install an ssh server on qnx?

Question

I'm working on a qnx device, and I want to be able to ssh into it. Does anyone have a primer on getting something like openSSH up and running?

Answer 1

If you want to start a SSH server to transfer files easily. The SSH daemon (sshd) is already installed, but the 'configuration' is missing.

1. Create the keys (do NOT use a password):¹

   random -t
   ssh-keygen -t rsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key -b 1024
   ssh-keygen -t rsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
   ssh-keygen -t dsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
   

2. Create a user account different from root with a password.²

3. Add the user to the sshd group in: /etc/group => sshd:x:6:user1
4. Start by executing: /usr/sbin/sshd

For QNX 6.6.0, you have to do in addition:

5. Create another key

   ssh-keygen -t ecdsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
   

   (The ECDSA key generation is only necessary for QNX 6.6.0 - see also here)

6. Create folders accordingly to fit this path /var/chroot/sshd/

If you want to use SFTP:

7. Create/Use the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config and enable Subsystem sftp /usr/libexec/sftp-server by adding this line to the file

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Some steps are also covered here on the QNX manual about sshd command.

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¹ ^{Here: the folder ssh/ was created in /etc/ and make sure the files belong to the user running the sshd!}

² ^{(i.e. direct root access via ssh is disabled by default but can be enabled by specifying PermitRootLogin yes in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config) file}

Answer 2

Once you followed the steps presented on qnx website (click here) you need to deactivate the PAM module from sshd_config file (under /etc/ssh). Change the line "UsePAM yes" to "UsePAM no".

Answer 3

QNX have removed support for packages since version 6.4. This means that it is difficult to install SSH and SSL from the 3rd Party Applications CD, because the utilities required arent there anymore.

It turns out their qpk file package is really just a tgz in disguise. So what you can do is untar the openssl and openssh packages. It will create a file structure like public/core-//opt All you need to do is copy all of the contents from /opt to /, and then add /opt/bin:/opt/sbin to your path, and /opt/lib to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Other things to note are:

• your random number generator needs to be started (random -t)
• you will need to set up a new /etc/openssh/sshd_config if you want to use the server, I copied mine from a Ubuntu machine
• You will need to generate keys, there is lots of information on doing this online

From what I have read, QNX 6.4.1 should come pre-installed with ssh. I am yet to confirm this

Answer 4

Depending on whether it's 6.2, 6.3 or 6.4 you will actually go about it in a different manner.

6.2 has "Installer" or "Install Software from QNX" in Photon, a GUI program that lets you download and install it kind of like Fedora's Pup, YaST or the likes. The command-line equivalent is cl-installer.

6.3 does not have the 6.2 package filesystem, but supports it if needed. On 6.3, the easiest way would be to get the 6.2's package from http://download.qnx.com/contrib/repository621a/ , unpack it (it's just a tarball) - you should be able to figure out which file goes where.

6.4 has support for pkgsrc which would be my preferred way of doing it there.