- Where to Find sshd Logs in Linux?
- Method 1: Using the “auth.log” File
- Method 2: Using the “lastlog” Command
- Method 3: Using the “journalctl” Command
- Conclusion
- Where to find SSH Login log files on centos
- 5 Answers 5
- How to view authentication logs on Ubuntu 20.04
- BitLaunch
- BitLaunch
- How to check system logins
- View the most recent logins
- See when users last logged in
- What to look for in authentication logs
- How to fix the ssh permission denied (publickey) error
- How to install and use PostgreSQL on Ubuntu 20.04
Where to Find sshd Logs in Linux?
The “sshd” is an abbreviation of the “Secure Shell Daemon” of an OpenSSH server. It manages incoming connections utilizing the SSH protocol as a server. It also allows the user to access the details like encryption, file transfers, terminal connections, tunneling, and user authentication. The “sshd-logs” handles the user authentication details, i.e., authorized/unauthorized login attempts.
This post illustrates the sshd logs’ exact location and how the user can check them in Ubuntu.
Method 1: Using the “auth.log” File
The “sshd logs” are in the “auth.log” file which is located in the “/var/log/” directory. It stores the authorization attempts details of the system like user logins, used authorized mechanism, and sshd logs.
Run the “grep” to filter out the “sshd logs” details from the “/var/log/auth.log” file:
$ grep ‘sshd’ /var/log/secure #For Fedora/CentOS/RHEL $ grep ‘sshd’ /var/log/auth.log #For Ubuntu/Debian-Based
The output shows all the “sshd” sessions details such as date, hostname, logname, port no and many others with the process ID “28569”.
Method 2: Using the “lastlog” Command
The “lastlog” command line utility is a program that displays the last login attempts details of the system accounts. The login details include port, login name, last login, and also the sshd logs.
Execute the “lastlog” command without any of its supported flags to list down the “sshd logs” details:
All the login attempts information has been displayed on the terminal.
To filter out only the “sshd logs” details, use the combination of “lastlog” and “grep” commands with the “|(Pipe)” character in this way:
The “sshd logs” contains no logged-in attempts.
Method 3: Using the “journalctl” Command
The “journalctl” is another command line tool that provides the log (including sshd logs) details of the systemd journaling system. It provides the systemd logs collection and systemd services and gets the messages from the kernel.
Use the “journalctl” command followed by the “-u(specifies unit “systemd”)” flag to show the “sshd logs” in the terminal:
The “sshd logs” contains “No entries” same as the “lastlog” output.
Conclusion
In Linux, the “sshd logs” are stored in the “/var/log/auth.log” file. These log details can be displayed using the “grep”, “lastlog”, and the “journalctl” command line utilities. All these utilities are pre-installed in the commonly used Linux distribution like “Fedora”, “CentOS”, “RHEL”, “Ubuntu/Debian”, and many others.
This post has listed down the sshd logs’ exact location and all possible methods to view them.
Where to find SSH Login log files on centos
I have shared a .pem file with few a developers and now something went wrong on the server. I would like to track logins in a log so that I can see who (IP) made changes and when (if even possible) what all change happened in that session. I tried looking /var/logs/auth.log, I cannot find such file in my machine. Few more details: Hosted on AWS Created and shared .pem file CentOS — centos-release-7-2.1511.el7.centos.2.10.x86_64 EC2 instance I have not set flow log Can someone help to track SSH login details ?
5 Answers 5
On CentOS login information is logged in /var/log/secure , not /var/logs/auth.log .
In Centos 7 the SSH logs are located at «/var/log/secure«
If you want to monitoring in real time, you may use the tail command as shown below:
tail -f -n 50 /var/log/secure | grep sshd
lastlog(8) will report the most recent information from the /var/log/lastlog facility, if you have pam_lastlog(8) configured.
aulastlog(8) will make a similar report, but from the audit logs in /var/log/audit/audit.log . (Recommended, as auditd(8) records are harder to tamper with than syslog(3) records.)
ausearch -c sshd will search your audit logs for reports from the sshd process.
last(8) will search through /var/log/wtmp for the most recent logins. lastb(8) will show bad login attempts .
/root/.bash_history might contain some details, assuming the goober who fiddled with your system was incompetent enough to not remove it before logging out.
Make sure you check ~/.ssh/authorized_keys files for all users on the system, check crontab s to make sure no new ports are scheduled to be opened at some point in the future, etc.
Note that all logs stored on the local machine are suspect; the only logs you can realistically trust are forwarded to another machine that wasn’t compromised. Perhaps it would be worth investigating centralized log handling via rsyslog(8) or auditd(8) remote machine handling.
grep sshd /var/log/audit/audit.log
How to view authentication logs on Ubuntu 20.04
Authentication logs form a vital part of server security. If you suspect a breach, they can provide a full list of every remote login attempt on your server, alongside the account, date, and timestamp.
BitLaunch
BitLaunch
Authentication logs form a vital part of server security. If you suspect a breach, they can provide a full list of every remote login attempt on your server, alongside the account, date, and timestamp. They also list each prompt that asks for a user password, such as the sudo command, and whether or not the authentication was successful.
How to check system logins
The majority of Linux systems keep these logs at /var/log/auth.log or /var/log/secure . For Ubuntu, it’s the former. We can view these with nano or vim like we would any other text file, but the following command will give us faster load times and let us easily view the file page-by-page:
OUTPUT: Jan 8 15:07:22 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 passwd[395]: password for 'root' changed by 'root' Jan 8 15:07:42 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sshd[546]: Received signal 15; terminating. Jan 8 15:07:42 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sshd[1321]: Server listening on 0.0.0.0 port 22. Jan 8 15:07:42 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sshd[1321]: Server listening on :: port 22. Jan 8 15:08:01 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sshd[1321]: Received signal 15; terminating. Jan 8 15:08:01 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sshd[1727]: Server listening on 0.0.0.0 port 22. Jan 8 15:08:01 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sshd[1727]: Server listening on :: port 22. Jan 8 15:09:41 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sshd[1738]: error: kex_exchange_identification: read: Connection reset by peer Jan 8 15:09:46 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sshd[1739]: pam_unix(sshd:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty=ssh ruser= rhost=81.161.63.100 user=root Jan 8 15:09:49 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sshd[1739]: Failed password for root from 81.161.63.100 port 54150 ssh2 Jan 8 15:14:36 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sshd[1896]: pam_unix(sshd:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty=ssh ruser= rhost=71.221.154.110 user=root Jan 8 15:14:37 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sudo: root : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/root ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/less /var/log/auth.log Jan 8 15:14:37 5ff8750c7437d20001bb84c5 sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by root(uid=0) (END)
Above is a cut-down example from a server that was just created. You can see that it also lists the initial password change when the server was programmatically created.
Once you’re ready, press q to quit the document.
View the most recent logins
If you just want to check the most recent logins, it’s even simpler. Back in the command-line, type last and press Enter.
The output will look something like this:
root pts/0 12.34.567.89 Fri Jan 8 15:30 still logged in root pts/0 12.34.567.89 Fri Jan 8 15:13 - 15:29 (00:16) reboot system boot 5.4.0-1009-kvm Fri Jan 8 15:07 still running
The last tool pulls its data from /var/log/wtmp , which is written to each time a user logs in. It’ll show username, tty, IP address, date and time, and session start/stop times.
If that’s too verbose, you can apply filters to the command with the following syntax:
Let’s look at an example. If we wanted to view all of the logins from the root user, we could run:
OUTPUT: root pts/0 12.345.678.90 Fri Jan 8 15:30 still logged in root pts/0 12.345.678.90 Fri Jan 8 15:13 - 15:29 (00:16)
Or, if we want to restrict it to a specific user and TTY:
See when users last logged in
If you notice an unauthorized change to the system, it’s often useful to see when each user last logged in. This way, you can determine who made the adjustment. We can do this via the lastlog command, which pulls data from /etc/log/lastlog and sorts them by /etc/password entries:
Username Port From Latest root pts/0 12.345.678.90 Fri Jan 8 15:30:06 +0000 2021 daemon **Never logged in** bin **Never logged in** sys **Never logged in** sync **Never logged in** bitlaunch pts/1 83.253.230.46 Fri Jan 8 16:09:53 +0000 2021 hack0r pts/1 83.253.230.46 Fri Jan 8 16:10:20 +0000 2021
You’ll notice quite a few users with a **Never logged in** entry in the Latest column. This is normal on account of them being system users.
But what if you just found out about a historical incursion or are looking for more specific information? lastlog has several options that can be of use.
Option | Description |
---|---|
-u, —user [LOGIN] | Print logs for a specific user with a specified login |
-b, —before [DAYS] | Print records older than a specified number of days |
-t, —time [DAYS] | Print records that are more recent than a specified number of days |
This is particularly useful if we want to get the last time a specific user logged in:
OUTPUT: root pts/0 12.345.678.90 Fri Jan 8 15:30:06 +0000 2021
What to look for in authentication logs
Now you know how to view authentication logs, it’s important to develop a pro-active mindset. Don’t just run these commands if you notice something strange – make it a habit to check regularly.
When you do so, look out out for the following:
- Users who are requesting sudo privileges to perform tasks that are outside their scope of work
- Is one user attempting to access or modify the content of another? Was a password changed unexpectedly?
- Attackers often create a new account so that they can perform actions without as much oversight
Of course, there’s one issue with all this. If an attacker gains access to your root account, they will be able to modify or delete your authentication log. An absence of authentication logs can be very telling, but it also doesn’t leave you with much information about the incursion.
As a result, it’s vital that you keep your root account secure and make regular backups of your log files and full server. Though they can help in the case of a breach, authentication logs are far from a replacement for basic security.
How to fix the ssh permission denied (publickey) error
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How to install and use PostgreSQL on Ubuntu 20.04
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