Remote Development with SSH
Accessing resources from a remote location is almost an essential practice for many individuals. From home office setup to third-party contractors or vendors, remote access connections are now an essential part of any business infrastructure. Recent trends show how software companies began to develop new efficient streams of work output. They began by utilizing remote connections and access to remote environments. These new practices benefit both sides of the spectrum: the client and developer.
Clients utilize best industry practices such as VM, remote connections, and remote environments by adapting to remote development. They can begin granting external contractors or developers access directly to their environment. This gives clients control over their resources and the code (Intellectual Property) that the developers create. Additionally, remote development eliminates security risks out of the client’s control. As the contractor connects remotely, they instantly use your secure environment with pre-configured workstations. In addition, with additional tools such as user session monitoring, you can observe and supervise all active user sessions. Ensuring that:
– Your contractors have the necessary support required.
– You increase ROI out of your contractors.
– Eliminate unnecessary code exposure on the developer’s device.
– Any newcomers (onboarding) can work instantly with senior supervision.
On the other hand, developers also gain benefits from such practices. They can instantly join appropriate servers containing a pre-made environment with remote access. Eliminating the need to create their own and perhaps missing some security incentives. Additionally, this reduces the necessary hustle for the developer to maintain consistency within their environment and share their work with other members on their devices or share their work on third-party platforms or repositories. All information is located in the client’s secure environment, wherewith the appropriate access; they can work in a reproducible environment without any obstacles.
How to use SSH to connect to a target server
Secure Shell or SSH is a protocol that enables secure remote connections between two systems in a network. SSH is best applied on an insecure network as the connection enables encrypted traffic, securing the two points. To access a remote server, it’s required to have an SSH client and SSH server already set up. Additionally, you will need an IP address or the hostname.
In your terminal, type the IP address of the remote server “shh 192.169.XXX.XXX”. Upon connecting, the terminal will load a message stating whether you want to continue connecting; type “yes.” Afterward, it’s best to specify a username for the SSH connection; you can do so by typing “ssh (username)@hostname or IP.” Provide your credentials and now you have access to the remote server.
Now generate SSH key using SSH keygen command to generate a public and private key. To generate the SSH keygen, open your terminal, and on the host machine type, “ssh-keygen -t rsa” this command creates a key pair. You can set your file location and passphrase or use the default ones by pressing enter. To use the key pair of authentication, you can copy the public key to a specific location, for example, a server “ssh-copy-id hostname”. You have now successfully connected and put an additional security layer on your remote connection! However, that’s not the end of it!
To further secure your SSH connection, it is best to get rid of default configurations. As these are most likely to be exploited. Here at Fudo, we recommend that you:
– Change the TCP port (SSH Daemon listener) from default to a different port number.
– Apply SSH key pairs for authentication.
– Disable root access to your server; best to use a regular account and switch to a root user when necessary.
Secure Access With Fudo – SSH Connection
With Fudo, you can easily connect to any server via SSH with just a few clicks. Create an account and add the SSH server to your Fudo environment. Users can create secret replacements either with a password, password from an external depository, key, or secret from a different account. Once your account is set up, define your relations with selected objects and select your connection mode. Allowing you to choose from a web or native client, depending on your needs with full secure remote access to your SSH server.
Using Fudo provides organizations more secure connections and with features such as 2FA and Just-In-Time you can manage user authentication processes and access to critical resources. Moreover, with our AI biometric technology we capture user behavior, creating a biometric user profile that, in the case of anomaly, can send alerts – indicating abuse in the form of hijacking access or an established session.
Author: Damian Borkowski– Technical Marketing Specialist
