The LinuxServer.io team brings you another container release featuring :-
- regular and timely application updates
- easy user mappings (PGID, PUID)
- custom base image with s6 overlay
- weekly base OS updates with common layers across the entire LinuxServer.io ecosystem to minimise space usage, down time and bandwidth
- regular security updates
Find us at:
- Blog - all the things you can do with our containers including How-To guides, opinions and much more!
- Discord - realtime support / chat with the community and the team.
- Discourse - post on our community forum.
- Fleet - an online web interface which displays all of our maintained images.
- GitHub - view the source for all of our repositories.
- Open Collective - please consider helping us by either donating or contributing to our budget
Openssh-server is a sandboxed environment that allows ssh access without giving keys to the entire server. Giving ssh access via private key often means giving full access to the server. This container creates a limited and sandboxed environment that others can ssh into. The users only have access to the folders mapped and the processes running inside this container.
Our images support multiple architectures such as x86-64
, arm64
and armhf
. We utilise the docker manifest for multi-platform awareness. More information is available from docker here and our announcement here.
Simply pulling linuxserver/openssh-server
should retrieve the correct image for your arch, but you can also pull specific arch images via tags.
The architectures supported by this image are:
Architecture | Tag |
---|---|
x86-64 | amd64-latest |
arm64 | arm64v8-latest |
armhf | arm32v7-latest |
Here are some example snippets to help you get started creating a container.
docker create \
--name=openssh-server \
--hostname=openssh-server `#optional` \
-e PUID=1000 \
-e PGID=1000 \
-e TZ=Europe/London \
-e PUBLIC_KEY=yourpublickey `#optional` \
-e PUBLIC_KEY_FILE=/path/to/file `#optional` \
-e SUDO_ACCESS=false `#optional` \
-e PASSWORD_ACCESS=false `#optional` \
-e USER_PASSWORD=password `#optional` \
-e USER_PASSWORD_FILE=/path/to/file `#optional` \
-e USER_NAME=linuxserver.io `#optional` \
-p 2222:2222 \
-v /path/to/appdata/config:/config \
--restart unless-stopped \
linuxserver/openssh-server
Compatible with docker-compose v2 schemas.
---
version: "2"
services:
openssh-server:
image: linuxserver/openssh-server
container_name: openssh-server
hostname: openssh-server #optional
environment:
- PUID=1000
- PGID=1000
- TZ=Europe/London
- PUBLIC_KEY=yourpublickey #optional
- PUBLIC_KEY_FILE=/path/to/file #optional
- SUDO_ACCESS=false #optional
- PASSWORD_ACCESS=false #optional
- USER_PASSWORD=password #optional
- USER_PASSWORD_FILE=/path/to/file #optional
- USER_NAME=linuxserver.io #optional
volumes:
- /path/to/appdata/config:/config
ports:
- 2222:2222
restart: unless-stopped
Container images are configured using parameters passed at runtime (such as those above). These parameters are separated by a colon and indicate <external>:<internal>
respectively. For example, -p 8080:80
would expose port 80
from inside the container to be accessible from the host's IP on port 8080
outside the container.
Parameter | Function |
---|---|
--hostname=openssh-server |
Optionally the hostname can be defined. |
-p 2222 |
ssh port |
-e PUID=1000 |
for UserID - see below for explanation |
-e PGID=1000 |
for GroupID - see below for explanation |
-e TZ=Europe/London |
Specify a timezone to use EG Europe/London |
-e PUBLIC_KEY=yourpublickey |
Optional ssh public key, which will automatically be added to authorized_keys. |
-e PUBLIC_KEY_FILE=/path/to/file |
Optionally specify a file containing the public key (works with docker secrets). |
-e SUDO_ACCESS=false |
Set to true to allow linuxserver.io , the ssh user, sudo access. Without USER_PASSWORD set, this will allow passwordless sudo access. |
-e PASSWORD_ACCESS=false |
Set to true to allow user/password ssh access. You will want to set USER_PASSWORD or USER_PASSWORD_FILE as well. |
-e USER_PASSWORD=password |
Optionally set a sudo password for linuxserver.io , the ssh user. If this or USER_PASSWORD_FILE are not set but SUDO_ACCESS is set to true, the user will have passwordless sudo access. |
-e USER_PASSWORD_FILE=/path/to/file |
Optionally specify a file that contains the password. This setting supersedes the USER_PASSWORD option (works with docker secrets). |
-e USER_NAME=linuxserver.io |
Optionally specify a user name (Default:linuxserver.io ) |
-v /config |
Contains all relevant configuration files. |
You can set any environment variable from a file by using a special prepend FILE__
.
As an example:
-e FILE__PASSWORD=/run/secrets/mysecretpassword
Will set the environment variable PASSWORD
based on the contents of the /run/secrets/mysecretpassword
file.
When using volumes (-v
flags) permissions issues can arise between the host OS and the container, we avoid this issue by allowing you to specify the user PUID
and group PGID
.
Ensure any volume directories on the host are owned by the same user you specify and any permissions issues will vanish like magic.
In this instance PUID=1000
and PGID=1000
, to find yours use id user
as below:
$ id username
uid=1000(dockeruser) gid=1000(dockergroup) groups=1000(dockergroup)
ย
If PUBLIC_KEY
or PUBLIC_KEY_FILE
variables are set, they will automatically be added to authorized_keys
. If not, the keys can manually be added to /config/.ssh/authorized_keys
and the container should be restarted.
Removing PUBLIC_KEY
or PUBLIC_KEY_FILE
variables from docker run environment variables will not remove the keys from authorized_keys
. PUBLIC_KEY_FILE
can be used with docker secrets.
We provide the ability to set and allow password based access via the PASSWORD_ACCESS
and USER_PASSWORD
variables, though we as an organization discourage using password auth for public facing ssh endpoints.
Connect to server via ssh -i /path/to/private/key -p PORT USER_NAME@SERVERIP
Setting SUDO_ACCESS
to true
by itself will allow passwordless sudo. USER_PASSWORD
and USER_PASSWORD_FILE
allow setting an optional sudo password.
The users only have access to the folders mapped and the processes running inside this container.
Add any volume mappings you like for the users to have access to.
To install packages or services for users to access, use the LinuxServer container customization methods described in this blog article.
Sample use case is when a server admin would like to have automated incoming backups from a remote server to the local server, but they might not want all the other admins of the remote server to have full access to the local server.
This container can be set up with a mounted folder for incoming backups, and rsync installed via LinuxServer container customization described above, so that the incoming backups can proceed, but remote server and its admins' access would be limited to the backup folder.
It is also possible to run multiple copies of this container with different ports mapped, different folders mounted and access to different private keys for compartmentalized access.
TIPS
You can volume map your own text file to /etc/motd
to override the message displayed upon connection.
You can optionally set the docker argument hostname
- Shell access whilst the container is running:
docker exec -it openssh-server /bin/bash
- To monitor the logs of the container in realtime:
docker logs -f openssh-server
- container version number
docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' openssh-server
- image version number
docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' linuxserver/openssh-server
Most of our images are static, versioned, and require an image update and container recreation to update the app inside. With some exceptions (ie. nextcloud, plex), we do not recommend or support updating apps inside the container. Please consult the Application Setup section above to see if it is recommended for the image.
Below are the instructions for updating containers:
- Update the image:
docker pull linuxserver/openssh-server
- Stop the running container:
docker stop openssh-server
- Delete the container:
docker rm openssh-server
- Recreate a new container with the same docker create parameters as instructed above (if mapped correctly to a host folder, your
/config
folder and settings will be preserved) - Start the new container:
docker start openssh-server
- You can also remove the old dangling images:
docker image prune
- Update all images:
docker-compose pull
- or update a single image:
docker-compose pull openssh-server
- or update a single image:
- Let compose update all containers as necessary:
docker-compose up -d
- or update a single container:
docker-compose up -d openssh-server
- or update a single container:
- You can also remove the old dangling images:
docker image prune
- Pull the latest image at its tag and replace it with the same env variables in one run:
docker run --rm \ -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \ containrrr/watchtower \ --run-once openssh-server
Note: We do not endorse the use of Watchtower as a solution to automated updates of existing Docker containers. In fact we generally discourage automated updates. However, this is a useful tool for one-time manual updates of containers where you have forgotten the original parameters. In the long term, we highly recommend using Docker Compose.
- You can also remove the old dangling images:
docker image prune
If you want to make local modifications to these images for development purposes or just to customize the logic:
git clone https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-openssh-server.git
cd docker-openssh-server
docker build \
--no-cache \
--pull \
-t linuxserver/openssh-server:latest .
The ARM variants can be built on x86_64 hardware using multiarch/qemu-user-static
docker run --rm --privileged multiarch/qemu-user-static:register --reset
Once registered you can define the dockerfile to use with -f Dockerfile.aarch64
.
- 13.01.20: - Add openssh-sftp-server.
- 19.12.19: - Rebasing to alpine 3.11.
- 17.10.19: - Initial Release.