Step by Step SSH guide

[martin MHC]

Hello

I have read lots about how it's unwise to access WHM with root, although
it is really useful, the browser interface for stuff makes a lot of things easy and provides lots of feedback.

However, I am aware accessing the root login is a potential risk and I am looking at how to minimise this risk,without loosin any abilities.

So; I have setup a SSH key, for the root, which works perfectly for accessing winSCP / Putty / Filezilla etc. All good.

My question comes that:

- I would like to continue to use the WHM browser interface. How do I go about using this with my SSH key file? (Or am I confused and this is impossible?)

ConfigServer Firewall tells me:
Check SSH PasswordAuthentication :: For ultimate SSH security, you should consider disabling PasswordAuthentication and only allow access using PubkeyAuthentication

- Once the above point 1 is setup, how do I go about disabling non-SSH logins using root? (I had researched this and thought I knew this, but that was a couple of months ago :-/ )

Cheers

 

[Infopro]

Have you seen this thread yet?
[Tutorial] Interested in increasing the security of your server? Read this. (sshd hardening)

 

[martin MHC]

Thanks InfoPro -- I hadn't seen that post, it covers most of what I was looking for, but I am still curious about how to limit browser logins (SSH seems mutually exclusive to this endevour) . I am now also researching two factor authentication for browser logins.


Cheers

 

[Infopro]

The docs should be helpful as well:
Host Access Control - Documentation - cPanel Documentation
Two-Factor Authentication - Documentation - cPanel Documentation

HTH!