RE: [cobalt-users] Installing OpenSSH (was: If you have been a vi ctim)

[Brandon Wheaton <brandonw@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: nichols andrew t [mailto:andrewn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>
> > Brandon,
> > 
> > if you could just help me clarify, i know how to unpack
> > and compile these, but what are the implications for the
> > versions already existing on my raq?
> > 
> > how do i ensure that there is just these latest versions,
> > and not a doubling up?
> 
> By default, when you 'make install' it should overwrite the older
> versions.  Thus said, it is strongly recommended you backup 
> old binaries
> and appropriate config files.
> 
> Drew

Hi.

Drew, your answer is true in a lot of cases, but not all.  Depending 
on how the previous version of SSH was installed, the binaries and 
config files could live in different places than where the new ones 
are installed and now over write them. 

For example, I believe the default RPM install location for sshd is
/usr/sbin.  Default location for sshd if a compiled binary is 
/usr/local/sbin.  If you do not delete the previous version in 
/usr/sbin and try to start your freshly installed version, you will 
most likely see something like:  

/etc/sshd_config line 4: Bad configuration option: protocol

To remedy this, all you need to do is "which sshd" to see which  
binary system is trying to execute.  If it is /usr/sbin/sshd, 
then to verify that this is the old binary, you can do /usr/sbin/sshd -v
and you will see something like:

[root@www:~]$ /usr/sbin/sshd -V
/usr/sbin/sshd: option requires an argument -- V
sshd version SSH_1.2.27
Usage: sshd [options]

This is clearly the wrong daemon, so all you really have to do is 
rm /usr/sbin/sshd and the system will automatically utilize the 
current daemon in /usr/local/sbin.  I actually helped a fellow list 
user with this exact problem last night. :^)

The best way to avoid this problem is prior to your install, do a 
find -/ name "*ssh*" and delete everything you find pertaining to 
your old installation of ssh to make for a nice, clean install.

The default locations for compiled OSSH binaries is under /usr/local 
and default for config files (sshd_config ssh_host_key, etc) is 
/usr/local/etc.  Before compilation of OpenSSH, when you do your 
./configure, you can specify alternate paths, which is the reason 
in my previous e-mail/Openssh install HOWTO for the --sysconfdir=/etc 
option.  This puts the config files in /etc rather than /usr/local/etc.



Take care and happy SSH'ing.

Brandon Wheaton
UNIX Systems Engineer 
ValiCert, Inc.
1215 Terra Bella Ave. 
Mountain View, CA 94043 
650.280.UNIX 

----
Sure UNIX is user friendly; it's just picky about who its friends are.