6.5

Table Of Contents
Enable or Disable Secure Shell on a vRealize Operations Manager node
You can enable Secure Shell (SSH) on a vRealize Operations Manager node for troubleshooting. For
example, to troubleshoot a server, you might require console access to the server. This is through SSH.
Disable SSH on a vRealize Operations Manager node for normal operation.
Procedure
1 Access the console of the vRealize Operations Manager node from vCenter.
2 Press Alt + F1 to access the login prompt then log in.
3 Run the #chkconfig command.
4 If the sshd service is o, run the #chkconfig sshd on command.
5 Run the #service sshd start command to start the sshd service.
6 Run the #service sshd stop command to stop the sshd service.
Create a Local Administrative Account for Secure Shell
You must create local administrative accounts that can be used as Secure Shell (SSH) and that are members
of the secondary wheel group, or both before you remove the root SSH access.
Before you disable direct root access, test that authorized administrators can access SSH by using
AllowGroups, and that they can use the wheel group and the su command to log in as root.
Procedure
1 Log in as root and run the following commands.
# useradd -d /home/vropsuser -g users -G wheel –m
# passwd username
Wheel is the group specied in AllowGroups for SSH access. To add multiple secondary groups, use -G
wheel,sshd.
2 Switch to the user and provide a new password to ensure password complexity checking.
# su – username
username@hostname:~>passwd
If the password complexity is met, the password updates. If the password complexity is not met, the
password reverts to the original password, and you must rerun the password command.
After you create the login accounts to allow SSH remote access and use the su command to log in as
root using the wheel access, you can remove the root account from the SSH direct login.
3 To remove direct login to SSH, modify the /etc/ssh/sshd_config le by replacing (#)PermitRootLogin
yes with PermitRootLogin no.
What to do next
Disable direct logins as root. By default, the hardened appliances allow direct login to root through the
console. After you create administrative accounts for nonrepudiation and test them for wheel access (su-
root), disable direct root logins by editing the /etc/securetty le as root and replacing the tty1 entry with
console.
Secure Configuration
16 VMware, Inc.