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gcloud compute ssh — avoid having to 2FA every time?

ng flag
Kannan Goundan

I use gcloud compute ssh to SSH into my instance, e.g.:

$ gcloud compute ssh shell-server --project=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
No zone specified. Using zone [us-central1-f] for instance: [shell-server].
External IP address was not found; defaulting to using IAP tunneling.
Please choose from the available authentication methods:
1: Security code from Google Authenticator application
2: Voice or text message verification code

Enter the number for the authentication method to use: 1
Enter your one-time password: XXXXXX
username@shell-server ~ $

Unfortunately, I have to 2FA every time. I like 2FA, but maybe there's a way to set things up so that I only have to provided it every few hours?

Update: I ran gcloud compute ssh --dry-run, which tells you exactly what command it's running:

/usr/bin/ssh \
    -t \
    -i /Users/kannan/.ssh/google_compute_engine \
    -o CheckHostIP=no \
    -o HostKeyAlias=compute.123123123123123123 \
    -o IdentitiesOnly=yes \
    -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no \
    -o UserKnownHostsFile=/Users/kannan/.ssh/google_compute_known_hosts \
    -o ProxyCommand='/usr/local/bin/python3 -S /Users/kannan/Software/google-cloud-sdk/lib/gcloud.py compute start-iap-tunnel shell-server %p --listen-on-stdin --project=XXXXXXXXXX --zone=us-central1-f --verbosity=warning' \
    -o ProxyUseFdpass=no \
    [email protected]

Update 2: I could keep gcloud compute start-iap-tunnel running in the background and configure my SSH to use that tunnel, but I'm hoping for something more automatic, similar to the convenience of SSH's ControlMaster=auto.

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John Hanley avatar
cn flag
John Hanley
Which service is providing MFA/2FA/2-Step-Verfication?
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ng flag
Kannan Goundan
@JohnHanley: Good question. I think it's GCP's "IAP Tunnel" feature that asks for 2FA. I updated my question with more details.
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ng flag
Kannan Goundan
@JohnHanley: Actually, I was wrong. It's actually the target instance itself ("shell-server") that asks for 2FA.
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ng flag
Kannan Goundan

I figured it out. Put this in ~/.ssh/config:

Host shell-server
    User kannan_example_org
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/google_compute_engine
    UserKnownHostsFile ~/.ssh/google_compute_known_hosts
    CheckHostIP no
    StrictHostKeyChecking no
    ProxyCommand gcloud compute start-iap-tunnel %n %p --project="..." --zone="..." --listen-on-stdin --verbosity=warning
    ProxyUseFdpass no
    ControlMaster auto
    ControlPersist 30m
  • ControlMaster auto: On every ssh/scp invocation, first check if there's an existing connection to shell-server. If so, just share that connection, so there's no re-auth and therefore no re-2FA.
  • ControlPersist 30m tells SSH that even after all ssh/scp invocations are done, keep the sharable connection open for 30m.

I can now just use plain ssh and scp commands with the hostname shell-server.

Note: I actually ended up setting ProxyCommand to a custom wrapper script that automatically determines --project=... and --zone=... from the hostname.

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John Malloc

The 2FA is a part of the OS Login service. Could you verify by the command below whether you have the flag set up for a project?

gcloud compute project-info describe | grep os

If it's enabled you may disable it for the entire project or during the creation of a VM.

More info here:

https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/managing-instance-access#enable_oslogin

I hope it will help.

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ng flag
Kannan Goundan
Oh sorry -- to be clear I don't want to disable 2FA. I just don't want to have to type it in on every new `ssh` (or `scp`) invocation. For example, maybe it could only ask for 2FA every 24 hours.
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de flag
John Malloc
In my opinion, it is not feasible to do in the OS Login service. There is no switch in the command line to set up a timeout.
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