How do I SSH and remove all previous SSH activity history?
I want to remove any and all activity logs for SSH remotely. How do I get to it?
My account on the remote server doesn't have admin privilege, and as such I just want to remove user to user connection records.
The answer to this lies in sshd.conf and sshd_config
(server) and ssh_config
(client). Depending on the log level it logs to /var/log/syslog
(default) and/or /var/log/auth.log
(loglevel 'verbose' contains ssh login attempts).
If present /var/log/secure
also contains an access log.
You will need root
/sudo
access to edit any of these files: they will be word-readable but not world-editable.
Next to that. Besides the login from the ssh daemon the command last
also shows (failed) logins from ssh. The information for this command comes from /var/log/wtmp
(There will be several more I bet).
And there is also the probability the sysadmin installed auditd
or logwatch
making it practically impossible to hide activity since they could get a notice based on activity undoing the registration of the ssh activity impossible.
Example of /var/log/auth.log
:
Aug 10 10:10:10 rinzwind sshd[3653]: Invalid user text from {ipadress} Aug 10 10:10:10 rinzwind sshd[3653]: Excess permission or bad ownership on file /var/log/btmp Aug 10 10:10:10 rinzwind sshd[3653]: error: Could not get shadow information for NOUSER Aug 10 10:10:10 rinzwind sshd[3653]: Failed password for invalid user test from {ipadress} port {port} ssh2 Aug 10 10:10:10 rinzwind sshd[3653]: Excess permission or bad ownership on file /var/log/btmp
You would want to look at /var/log/messages
and/or /var/log/syslog
.