PowerShell / PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH

sshd service does not start when changing sshd_config path

Open
#1,846 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
No language data
Stars
8.3k
Forks
819
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

"OpenSSH for Windows" version
OpenSSH_for_Windows_8.6p1, LibreSSL 3.3.3

Server OperatingSystem
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard

Client OperatingSystem
n/a

What is failing
When trying to launch sshd as a service with a config in a non-default location (-f flag on the command line), the service does not start (error 1067). When launching it via psexec, it works as expected.
Procmon shows that the sshd.exe process never tries to access the file specified, but tries the default path (in ProgramData\ssh).

Expected output
Service is started.

Actual output
Service start fails.

Is it an expected behaviour or have I missed something ?
I didn't see anything in the docs saying it was impossible, but I didn't see anything saying it was possible either...

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Reproduce the service-start failure with sshd.exe when using the -f flag for a non-default sshd_config path, and compare it with the working psexec launch. Check whether the service still accesses the default ProgramData\ssh location instead of the supplied path. Done means the sshd service starts successfully with the custom configuration path.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
operating-systems, security
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.