pssht is a PHP library that provides an SSH server that can be embedded in other applications.

What we're aiming for:

• Clean code (eg. PSR-2 & PSR-4 compliance, tests, ...)
• Extensibility
• Interoperability with as much SSH clients as possible, but mainly with the OpenSSH client

What we're not specifically aiming for, but still interested in:

• Completeness (support for TCP port forwarding, TUN/TAP tunneling, the scp/sftp subsystems, ...)
• Strong security (peer reviews, security audits, ...)

This should be obvious from the get-go, but DO NOT USE pssht in production. This project merely exists for two reasons:

• First, I wanted to provide a """somewhat secure""" cross-platform way to expose Erebot internals for introspection purposes and I did not want to install an external SSH daemon.
• Secondly, I wanted to learn more about the SSH protocol itself.

The implementation did not pass any specific security audit. In addition, no attempt has been made to avoid some common classes of vulnerabilities, eg. timing attacks. Not to mention that the PHP interpreter itself is known to be frequently subject to vulnerabilities of its own.

If you are looking for an SSH daemon with thorough testing and code audits to integrate with your PHP code, we recommend that you look into the OpenSSH project.

If you still aren't convinced that you shouldn't use this code in production, see this reddit page which relates part of the story of a project similar to pssht by MtGox's CEO.

In no event shall the authors of pssht be liable for anything that happens while using this library. Please read the license for the full disclaimer.

The requirements for pssht are quite basic:

• PHP 5.3.3 or later with the following PHP extensions enabled:
  • OpenSSL
  • mcrypt
  • gmp
  • pcre
  • Sockets
  • SPL
• Some external packages (they will automatically be installed when installing pssht):
  • erebot/plop for logging
  • symfony/config for configuration handling
  • symfony/dependency-injection for dependency injection
  • symfony/filesystem (dependency for symfony/config)

Moreover, you may be interested in enable the following PHP extensions to get additional features:

• HTTP: adds support for zlib-compression
• hash: adds support for more encryption and message authentication code algorithms

First things first, download the composer.phar executable or use the installer:

Now, you can either install pssht:

• As a basic SSH server for evaluation purposes (standalone).
• As a library/framework in your own project (embedded) to create a custom SSH server.

To install pssht as a standalone SSH server, clone this repository and then run Composer on it:

To install pssht as an embedded library in your application, create or update a composer.json file in your project's root directory with a requirement on pssht.

For example, for a new empty project, your composer.json file would look somewhat like this:

Run Composer:

Finally, copy pssht.xml to your project's root directory:

Start the server:

pssht will display various debugging messages while initializing. When ready, you will see something like this in the console:

You can now connect to the server with the same user that was used to start pssht by using your regular SSH client (eg. OpenSSH/PuTTy). For example, using the OpenSSH client and assuming pssht was run by clicky:

The default pssht.xml configuration file automatically loads the public keys stored in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. You can thus connect with the matching private key. It will also accept password-based authentication using "pssht" as the password.

pssht uses the Dependency Injection component from the Symfony2 framework for its configuration.

Have a look at the default pssht.xml configuration file for ways to customize pssht. The file contains numerous comments and the options should thus be very straightforward.

pssht supports the mechanisms and algorithms defined in the following documents for compatibility with other Secure Shell implementations:

• 4250 — SSH Protocol Assigned Numbers
• 4251 — SSH Protocol Architecture
• 4252 — SSH Authentication Protocol
• 4253 — SSH Transport Layer Protocol
• 4254 — SSH Connection Protocol
• 4344 — SSH Transport Layer Encryption Modes
• 4345 — Improved Arcfour Modes for the SSH Transport Layer Protocol
• 4462 — SSH Public Key File Format
• 5647 — AES Galois Counter Mode for the SSH Transport Layer Protocol
• 5656 — Elliptic Curve Algorithm Integration in SSH
• 6668 — SHA-2 Data Integrity Algorithms
• draft-miller-secsh-umac-01 — UMAC in the SSH Transport Layer Protocol
• draft-miller-secsh-compression-delayed-00 — Delayed compression until after authentication
• OpenSSH PROTOCOL — Various OpenSSH extensions to the SSH protocol
• OpenSSH private key format — Specification for OpenSSH's private key format
• ChaCha20-Poly1305 — The chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com authenticated encryption cipher
• Ed25519 curve — Twisted Edwards Curve 2**255-19
• Curve25519 curve — Montgomery Curve 2**255-19

The rest of this section describes precisely which algorithms and features are supported.

TL;DR here's a feature chart for comparison with OpenSSH 6.7p1:

• ☑ Services (2 in pssht; 2 in OpenSSH)
• ☐ Authentication methods (4 in pssht; ? in OpenSSH)
• ☐ Key exchange methods (6 in pssht; 8 in OpenSSH)
• ☑ Encryption algorithms (34 in pssht; 16 in OpenSSH)¹
• ☑ MAC algorithms (20 in pssht; 19 in OpenSSH)²
• ☐ Public key algorithms (6 in pssht; 14 in OpenSSH)
• ☑ Compression algorithms (2 in pssht; 2 in OpenSSH)³

The following services are supported:

• ssh-userauth
• ssh-connection

The following authentication methods are supported:

• publickey
• password
• hostbased
• none

The following key exchange methods are supported:

• curve25519-sha256@libssh.org
• diffie-hellman-group1-sha1
• diffie-hellman-group14-sha1
• ecdh-sha2-nistp256
• ecdh-sha2-nistp384
• ecdh-sha2-nistp521

The PHP hash extension must be installed for curve25519-sha256@libssh.org and the ecdsa-sha2-* family of algorithms to work properly. Also, elliptic curve points encoded using point compression are not accepted or generated.

The following encryption algorithms are supported:

• 3des-cbc
• 3des-ctr
• aes128-cbc
• aes128-ctr
• aes128-gcm@openssh.com
• aes192-cbc
• aes192-ctr
• aes256-cbc
• aes256-ctr
• aes256-gcm@openssh.com
• arcfour
• arcfour128
• arcfour256
• blowfish-cbc
• blowfish-ctr
• cast128-cbc
• cast128-ctr
• chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com
• idea-cbc
• idea-ctr
• none
• rijndael-cbc@lysator.liu.se (as an alias for aes256-cbc)
• serpent128-cbc
• serpent192-cbc
• serpent256-cbc
• serpent128-ctr
• serpent192-ctr
• serpent256-ctr
• twofish-cbc
• twofish128-cbc
• twofish192-cbc
• twofish256-cbc
• twofish128-ctr
• twofish192-ctr
• twofish256-ctr

The following MAC algorithms are supported:

• hmac-md5
• hmac-md5-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-md5-96
• hmac-md5-96-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-ripemd160
• hmac-ripemd160@openssh.com (as an alias for hmac-ripemd160)
• hmac-ripemd160-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-sha1
• hmac-sha1-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-sha1-96
• hmac-sha1-96-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-sha2-256
• hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com
• hmac-sha2-512
• hmac-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com
• none
• ripemd160 (as an alias for hmac-ripemd160)
• umac-64@openssh.com
• umac-64-etm@openssh.com
• umac-128@openssh.com
• umac-128-etm@openssh.com

All these algorithms except for the umac-* family require the PHP hash extension in order to work properly.

The following public key algorithms are supported:

• ecdsa-sha2-nistp256
• ecdsa-sha2-nistp384
• ecdsa-sha2-nistp521
• ssh-dss
• ssh-ed25519
• ssh-rsa

The PHP hash extension must be installed for the ssh-ed25519 and ecdsa-sha2-* family of algorithms to work properly. Also, elliptic curve points encoded using point compression are not accepted or generated.

The following compression algorithms are supported:

• none
• zlib
• zlib@openssh.com

The PHP http extension must be installed for the zlib and zlib@openssh.com algorithms to work properly.

pssht is mainly intended to be used as an embedded SSH server for PHP applications. By default, only the bare structure for an SSH server is provided. The application using pssht is responsible for adding it's own logic on top of this structure.

Want to contribute back to the project?

• Fork the code to your own account.
• Create a new branch.
• Hack around.
• Create a pull request with your changes.

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014 François Poirotte

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

• [#28] Temporarily fix Diffie–Hellman key exchange by disabling public key validation for Elliptic Curve Diffie–Hellman. This code will be revisited later on as it currently represents a possible security threat when ECDH is used.
• Improve this README (installation instruction, changelog).
• Change the default pssht.xml so that it accepts connections from the same user as the one starting the server (prior to this change, it used an hardcoded username).

• Initial release with lots of features already.