Enable Legacy Cipher in Linux for SecureCRT

why it broke

SecureCRT version 3.1.2 has a limited selection of available ciphers. It is an old version of the client. In the past when the selections

• Cipher: 3DES
• MAC: MD5

where used, the client connected to the linux system sshd server (OpenSSH). SecureCRT is actually using the cipher "3des-cbc" specifically and "hmac-md5" for the MAC (Message Authentication Codes).

Supporting legacy ciphers for backwards compatibility is necessary to connect "ssh" with SecureCRT. The ssh server "sshd" ciphers can be configured via the file:

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

See what ciphers are available on your system:

ssh -Q cipher localhost
ssh -Q mac localhost

Even though 3des-cbc is enabled in the configuration, the client using 3des-cbc is rejected, as evidence in the log

cat /var/log/auth.log

It turns out that number of version 2 ciphers have been disabled in the 6.7p1-1 release of openssh. Lets see what version of OpenSSH we have.

dpkg-query -l|grep -i openssh

Debian Linux Jessie reports openssh-server 1:6.7p1-5+deb8u3 which has the following ciphers disabled: 3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,arcfour128,arcfour256,aes128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,rijndael-cbc@lysator.liu.se

   * sshd(8): The default set of ciphers and MACs has been altered to
     remove unsafe algorithms. In particular, CBC ciphers and arcfour*
     are disabled by default.

     The full set of algorithms remains available if configured
     explicitly via the Ciphers and MACs sshd_config options.

When a SSH client connects to a server, each side offers lists of connection parameters to the other. These are, with the corresponding ssh_config keyword:

• KexAlgorithms: the key exchange methods that are used to generate per-connection keys
• Ciphers: the ciphers to encrypt the connection
• MACs: the message authentication codes used to detect traffic modification
• PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes: the public key algorithms that the server can use to authenticate itself to

making it work

To get it up and running using weak ciphers as to support an old version of SecureCRT you must edit the sshd_config file. Before you do that, get a list of ciphers and macs that you can copy to later paste into the sshd_config file:

ssh -Q cipher localhost | paste -d , -s
ssh -Q mac localhost | paste -d , -s

Copy that output into the sshd_config file along with a third line. Open sshd_config for editing:

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Add the following lines near the top, under where it says "Protocol 2"

Ciphers 3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,arcfour128,arcfour256,aes128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc
MACs hmac-sha1,hmac-sha1-96,hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512,hmac-md5,hmac-md5-96,hmac-ripemd160,hmac-ripemd160@openssh.com,umac-64@openssh.com,umac-128@openssh.com,hmac-sha1-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha1-96-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com,hmac-md5-etm@openssh.com,hmac-md5-96-etm@openssh.com,hmac-ripemd160-etm@openssh.com,umac-64-etm@openssh.com,umac-128-etm@openssh.com
KexAlgorithms diffie-hellman-group1-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,ecdh-sha2-nistp256,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp521,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1,curve25519-sha256@libssh.org

Remember we obtained the ciphers and macs from the list we generated with the preceding commands. Now we had to add a third line for the KexAlgorithms.

Restart the sshd service

service sshd restart

Monitor the log while attempting to connect with SecureCRT

tail -f /var/log/auth.log