execd

README

execd

Note

This is a fork of execd by progrium. This version of execd is far different, but for posterity the original readme is included below.

Changes made

• Authentication over etcd
  • Keys go in /flitter/builder/users/$USERNAME/$FINGERPRINT -> b64 encoded key
• Only allow git pushes to be made
• Command line flag for etcd endpoint added
• Remove auth-handler

Usage is identical to stock execd except the auth-handler is removed.

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A very lightweight SSH server frontend written in Go. The backend auth and execution logic is handled by commands you specify, letting you customize its behavior via your own scripts/executables.

Using execd

Usage: ./execd [options] <auth-handler> <exec-handler>

  -d=false: debug mode displays handler output
  -e=false: pass environment to handlers
  -k="": pem file of private keys (read from SSH_PRIVATE_KEYS by default)
  -p="22": port to listen on
  -s=false: run exec handler via SHELL

auth-handler $user $key

• $user argument is the name of the user being used to attempt the connection
• $key argument is the public key data being provided for authentication

auth-handler is the path to an executable that's used for authenticating incoming SSH connections. If it returns with exit status 0, the connection will be allowed, otherwise it will be denied. The output of auth-handler must be empty, or key-value pairs in the form KEY=value separated by newlines, which will be added to the environment of exec-handler.

Although auth-handler is required, you can still achieve no-auth open access by providing /usr/bin/true as auth-handler.

exec-handler $command...

• $command... arguments is the command line that was specified to run by the SSH client

exec-handler is the path to an executable that's used to execute the command provided by the client. The meaning of that is quite flexible. All of the stdout and stderr is returned to the client, including the exit status. If the client provides stdin, that's passed to the exec-handler. Any environment variables provided by the auth-handler output will be available to exec-handler, as well as $USER and $SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND environment variables.

Credit / History

It started with gitreceive, which was then used in Dokku. Then I made a more generalized version of gitreceive, more similar to execd, called sshcommand, which eventually replaced gitreceive in Dokku. When I started work on Flynn, the first projects included gitreceived (a standalone daemon version of gitreceive). This was refined by the Flynn community, namely Jonathan Rudenberg.

Eventually I came to realize gitreceived could be generalized / simplified further in a way that could be used with the original gitreceive, and replace sshcommand, and be used in Dokku, and potentially replace gitreceived in Flynn. This project takes learnings from all those projects, though mostly gitreceived.

Sponsors

This project was made possible thanks to DigitalOcean.

License

BSD

Documentation

Overview

Command execd is a simple SSH server that allows a user to run single commands on a remote server, suitable for things like git deploys. This is a fork of execd by progrium. This version of execd is far different.

Usage: ./execd [options] <exec-handler>

  -debug=false: debug mode displays handler output
  -env-pass=false: pass environment to handlers
  -etcd-node="http://127.0.0.1:4001": etcd node to connect to
  -key="": pem file of private keys (read from SSH_PRIVATE_KEYS by default)
  -port="22": port to listen on

It is not suggested you run this outside of flitter as-is unless you know what you are doing.

Changes:

• Authentication over etcd
• Keys go in `/flitter/builder/users/$USERNAME/$FINGERPRINT` -> b64 encoded key
• Only allow git pushes to be made
• Command line flag for etcd endpoint added
• Remove `auth-handler`