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SSH Configuring RightScale's RightImage FC6V2

by jsiegel on June 15, 2007

We are a RightScale Sponsor and advocate. That said, we've been using RightScale for almost a year for our own needs and regularly run dozens of ad-hoc instances on their platform. I saw their April release of RightImages, but just had my first chance to try one out.

Using a RightImage was a breeze. When launching a new instance, I selected RightImage FC6V2 (a built-from scratch FC6 image with detailed build instructions on RightScale's blog):

For my usage, I needed to use the instance to issue a standard login account and my own superuser login. Once the instance came online, I used these steps:

• 1. I used the web-based SSH login console to access the machine.
• 2. I added my user and the other user's login:

  adduser jsiegel
  adduser anotheruser

• 3. I set passwords for both:

  passwd jsiegel
  passwd anotheruser

• 4. I added my own account to the wheel group:

  vi /etc/group

  My edits resulted in:

  wheel:x:10:root,jsiegel

• 5. I added the wheel group to allow sudo usage:

  visudo

  My edits resulted in:

  ## Same thing without a password
  %wheel  ALL=(ALL)       NOPASSWD: ALL
  

• 6. I modified sshd's configuration to allow logins with password (the RightImage by default disabled this):

  vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

  My edits resulted in:

  # To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
  #PasswordAuthentication no
  #PermitEmptyPasswords no
  #PasswordAuthentication no
  

• 7. I found sshd's process id and sent it a reset request (HUP signal):

  pgrep sshd

  This listed two ids say 2001, 2003. I then ran:

  kill -HUP 2001 2003

I was now logged out of my Java terminal window (the HUP reset my connection). I loaded up terminal and logged into the box with no problems. And, if for any reason I need root user privileges, I just preface it with sudo like:

sudo /sbin/service httpd restart