Setting up sftp on z/OS with ADCD

SFTP is an FTP implementation from openssl, it copies files to and from Unix Services.

The documentation z/OS OpenSSH User’s Guide(SC27-6806-50) is very good. It is clear, and answered most of my questions.

The ADCD implementation is not 100% complete, but it does not take much to fix it.

Background

The server runs in Unix Services. When you use “START SSHD”, it runs the started task SSHD which attaches a process in Unix Services, and then the started task ends! If you use the operator command “D A,SSH*” it will show it is running in Unix Services.

The documentation has several ways of stopping it – I just use cancel!

Messages are written to the syslog daemon.

It uses port 22. ADCD.Z24C.TCPPARMS(PROF2) has the statement

PORT                                                                 
    ...                         
    22 TCP SSHD*               ; port for sshd daemonrver            

This means that jobs SSHD* are authorised to use port 22.

Getting it working

Configure syslogd

See Setting up syslogd on z/OS.

To capture messages produced by SSHD, you need syslogd configured for SSHD. For example add to /etc/syslog.conf

*.SSHD.*.* /var/log/SSHD

Generate the missing certificates

From IBMUSER in OMVS, I issued

/usr/sbin/sshd -f /etc/ssh/sshd_config

This reported two cipher specs were missing. I used the command

ssh-keygen -A

This gave me

ssh-keygen: generating new host keys: ECDSA ED25519

Starting the sshd server

Use the operator command D A,SSH* to see if it is already running. if you want to restart it, cancel it using the operator command C SSHD…

Issue the operator command start SSHD. The started task will start, and then end, but will leave a Unix Services task running.

Note: After IPL, D SSH* gives

SSHD     SSHD     *OMVSEX  OWT  SO  A=0042   PER=NO   SMC=000 
                                    WUID=STC03715 USERID=START1       
                                    WKL=STARTED  SCL=STCLOM   P=1    
                                    

after SSHD is cancelled and restarted the output is

SSHD3    STEP1    START1   OWT  AO  A=0034   PER=NO   SMC=000       
                                    WUID=STC03701 USERID=START1      
                                    WKL=SERVERS  SCL=SRVOMVS  P=1    
                                    

so its workload behaviour may be different.

Use it

From my Linux machine I was able to use sftp colin@10.1.1.2 .