How to Restrict SSH User Access to Certain Directory Using Chrooted Jail

There are several reasons to restrict an SSH user session to a particular directory, especially on web servers, but the obvious one is system security. In order to lock SSH users in a certain directory, we can use chroot mechanism.

change root (chroot) in Unix-like systems such as Linux, is a means of separating specific user operations from the rest of the Linux system; changes the apparent root directory for the currently running user process and its child (parent) process with a new root directory called a chrooted jail.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to restrict SSH user access to a given directory in Linux. Note that we’ll run all the commands as root, use the sudo command if you are logged into the server as a normal user.

Step 1: Create SSH Chroot Jail

1. Start by creating the chroot jail using the mkdir command below:

# mkdir -p /home/test

2. Next, identify required files, according to the sshd_config man page, the ChrootDirectory option specifies the pathname of the directory to chroot to after authentication. The directory must contain the necessary files and directories to support a user’s session.

For an interactive session, this requires at least a shell, commonly sh, and basic /dev nodes such as null, zero, stdin, stdout, stderr, and tty devices:

# ls -l /dev/{null,zero,stdin,stdout,stderr,random,tty}
Listing Required Files
Listing Required Files

3. Now, create the /dev files as follows using the mknod command. In the command below, the -m flag is used to specify the file permissions bits, c means character file and the two numbers are major and minor numbers that the files point to.

# mkdir -p /home/test/dev/		
# cd /home/test/dev/
# mknod -m 666 null c 1 3
# mknod -m 666 tty c 5 0
# mknod -m 666 zero c 1 5
# mknod -m 666 random c 1 8
Create /dev and Required Files
Create /dev and Required Files

4. Afterwards, set the appropriate permission on the chroot jail. Note that the chroot jail and its subdirectories and subfiles must be owned by the root user, and not writable by any normal user or group:

# chown root:root /home/test
# chmod 0755 /home/test
# ls -ld /home/test
Set Permissions on Directory
Set Permissions on Directory

Step 2: Setup Interactive Shell for SSH Chroot Jail

5. First, create the bin directory and then copy the /bin/bash files into the bin directory using the cp command as follows:

# mkdir -p /home/test/bin
# cp -v /bin/bash /home/test/bin/
Copy Files to bin Directory
Copy Files to bin Directory

6. Now, identify the bash required for shared libs, as below, and copy them into the lib directory:

# ldd /bin/bash
# mkdir -p /home/test/lib64
# cp -v /lib64/{libtinfo.so.5,libdl.so.2,libc.so.6,ld-linux-x86-64.so.2} /home/test/lib64/
Copy Shared Library Files
Copy Shared Library Files

Step 3: Create and Configure SSH User

7. Now, create the SSH user with the useradd command and set a secure password for the user:

# useradd tecmint
# passwd tecmint

8. Create the chroot jail general configurations directory, /home/test/etc and copy the updated account files (/etc/passwd and /etc/group) into this directory as follows:

# mkdir /home/test/etc
# cp -vf /etc/{passwd,group} /home/test/etc/
Copy Password Files
Copy Password Files
Note: Each time you add more SSH users to the system, you will need to copy the updated account files into the /home/test/etc directory.

Step 4: Configure SSH to Use Chroot Jail

9. Now, open the sshd_config file.

# vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

and add/modify the lines below in the file.

#define username to apply chroot jail to
Match User tecmint
#specify chroot jail
ChrootDirectory /home/test
Configure SSH Chroot Jail
Configure SSH Chroot Jail

Save the file and exit, and restart the SSHD services:

# systemctl restart sshd
OR
# service sshd restart

Step 5: Testing SSH with Chroot Jail

10. At this point, test if the chroot jail setup is working as expected:

# ssh [email protected]
-bash-4.1$ ls
-bash-4.1$ date
-bash-4.1$ uname
Testing SSH User Chroot Jail
Testing SSH User Chroot Jail

From the screenshot above, we can see that the SSH user is locked in the chrooted jail, and can’t run any external commands (ls, date, uname, etc).

The user can only execute bash and its builtin commands such as (pwd, history, echo, etc) as seen below:

# ssh [email protected]
-bash-4.1$ pwd
-bash-4.1$ echo "Tecmint - Fastest Growing Linux Site"
-bash-4.1$ history
SSH Built-in Commands
SSH Built-in Commands

Step 6. Create SSH User’s Home Directory and Add Linux Commands

11. From the previous step, we can notice that the user is locked in the root directory, we can create a home directory for the SSH user like so (do this for all future users):

# mkdir -p /home/test/home/tecmint
# chown -R tecmint:tecmint /home/test/home/tecmint
# chmod -R 0700 /home/test/home/tecmint
Create SSH User Home Directory
Create SSH User Home Directory

12. Next, install a few user commands such as ls, date, and mkdir in the bin directory:

# cp -v /bin/ls /home/test/bin/
# cp -v /bin/date /home/test/bin/
# cp -v /bin/mkdir /home/test/bin/
Add Commands to SSH User
Add Commands to SSH User

13. Next, check the shared libraries for the commands above and move them into the chrooted jail libraries directory:

# ldd /bin/ls
# cp -v /lib64/{libselinux.so.1,libcap.so.2,libacl.so.1,libc.so.6,libpcre.so.1,libdl.so.2,ld-linux-x86-64.so.2,libattr.so.1,libpthread.so.0} /home/test/lib64/
Copy Shared Libraries
Copy Shared Libraries

Step 7. Testing SFTP with Chroot Jail

14. Do a final test using sftp; check if the commands you have just installed are working.

Add the line below in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file:

#Enable sftp to chrooted jail 
ForceCommand internal-sftp

Save the file and exit. Then restart the SSHD services:

# systemctl restart sshd
OR
# service sshd restart

15. Now, test using SSH, and you’ll get the following error:

# ssh [email protected]
Test SSH Chroot Jail
Test SSH Chroot Jail

Try using SFTP as follows:

# sftp [email protected]
Testing sFTP SSH User
Testing sFTP SSH User

That’s it for now! In this article, we showed you how to restrict an SSH user in a given directory (chrooted jail) in Linux. Use the comment section below to offer us your thoughts about this guide.

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Aaron Kili
Aaron Kili is a Linux and F.O.S.S enthusiast, an upcoming Linux SysAdmin, web developer, and currently a content creator for TecMint who loves working with computers and strongly believes in sharing knowledge.

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64 thoughts on “How to Restrict SSH User Access to Certain Directory Using Chrooted Jail”

  1. Hello, I want to ask, I want a user with a chroot jail to be able to run the mysql service. I have moved several binary files. however, I get an error like cannot open ‘/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock‘ for reading: No such device or address (2) . Please help

    Reply
  2. Hello Aaron,

    What measures are done to prevent the user from adding their own binaries (+ libraries they depend upon) to the chrooted jail to evade the chroot restrictions? They don’t need to put their uploaded libs to {,/usr}/lib64 in order to use them (they can ask the linker to perform the linking explicitly).

    Reply
  3. Dear Aaron,

    I’ve performed your document steps twice along with the suggestion made by sizeur, but still I’m unable to execute all commands that we’ve added for the particular user.

    Upon successful login, I can’t see anything inside /home/.

    Please Guide

    Reply
  4. Hi Aaron, thanks for this valuable write-up and you made it so structured to follow.

    I had to change the shell of chroot user to bash by “chsh -s /bin/bash chroot-user“. However Backspace, Tab, Del, and arrow keys not working in the terminal (using ssh). Delete throws a space. Moreover, nano throws “Error opening terminal: xterm-256color.” Please let me if I miss something. Looking for your help. Thanks in advance.

    Reply
  5. As many other users, the ls or date did not worked for me (command not found). I solved the problem easily by correcting the system PATH variable (add /bin/):

    -bash-4.4$ ls
    -bash: ls: command not found
    -bash-4.4$ echo $PATH
    /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin
    -bash-4.4$ export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin
    -bash-4.4$ ls
    bin dev etc home lib lib64

    PS: Don’t forget to add the export in your .bashrc to make it permanent

    Reply

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