Introduction

This tutorial covers How to Harden SSH on SLES 16 on SLES 16. SLES 16 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16) is SUSE’s enterprise-grade Linux distribution. It uses the zypper package manager, AppArmor for mandatory access control, and systemctl for service management.

Step 1 — Edit SSH Configuration

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Step 2 — Recommended Settings

PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no
X11Forwarding no
MaxAuthTries 3
ClientAliveInterval 300

Step 3 — Restart SSH

systemctl restart sshd

AppArmor Considerations

Note: SLES 16 uses AppArmor for mandatory access control. Check AppArmor status with aa-status and enforce profiles with aa-enforce /etc/apparmor.d/<profile>.

Conclusion

You have successfully completed: How to Harden SSH on SLES 16. For more SLES 16 tutorials, see our full SLES 16 series.