SSH Socket-Based

Table of Contents

SSH - This article is part of a series.

Part 5: This Article

While systemd socket activation for SSH can be an adjustment, it ultimately provides better efficiency.

Why/What is Socket-Based?
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Socket-based SSHD refers to a feature where the OpenSSH daemon is not running in the background constantly. Instead, systemd monitors the SSH port (Port 22) and only starts the actual SSH service when an incoming connection attempt is detected.

Since Ubuntu 22.10, Canonical has continued in optimizing SSH (OpenSSH) by using systemd socket-based activation instead of running standalone service.

The Difference
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Traditional (ssh.service): The sshd service runs continuously in the background from boot, actively consuming memory and system resources whether anyone is connecting or not.
Socket-based (ssh.socket): systemd handles the waiting. It wakes up, triggers sshd, and hands off the connection only when a user attempts to log in.

The Benefits
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The main benefit is resource efficiency.

Reduced memory footprint by saving system resources (3~5 MiB) as sshd isn’t running 24/7.
Improved parallelization in faster boot times and better efficiency in service management by allowing systemd to handle the initial socket setup.

Managing Socket-Based SSH
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We still manage SSH with systemctl command on either traditional (ssh.service) or socket-based (ssh.socket).

% systemctl status [ ssh.service | ssh.socket ]
% systemctl stop [ ssh.service | ssh.socket ]
% systemctl start [ ssh.service | ssh.socket ]
% systemctl restart [ ssh.service | ssh.socket ]

To revert back to ssh.service:

% sudo systemctl disable --now ssh.socket
% sudo systemctl enable --now ssh.service

To switch to socket-based ssh.socket:

% sudo systemctl disable --now ssh.service
% sudo systemctl enable --now ssh.socket

Customize SSH Port
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By default, SSH listens on port 22 even in socket-based.

To change SSH port to 22022 (and close 22), we used to do:

#/etc/ssh/sshd_config
#Port 22
Port 22022

But for socket-based SSH configuration, we need to:

% sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/ssh.socket.d
% sudo cat > /etc/systemd/system/ssh.socket.d/listen.conf <<EOF
[Socket]
ListenStream=
ListenStream=22022
EOF