[NTLUG:Discuss] SSH

[severian@pobox.com]

WooHoo,
   I got a Linux box into the office doing ssh server duty forwarding ports 
to allow my customer to work from home on a Windows machine driving her 
desktop Windows machine.  The final trick was realizing that Putty does not 
work right if you try to store the port forwarding information.  When I 
passed the port forwarding information on the command line, it worked the 
first time.  I had a Linux box doing this remote VNC months ago, but today 
was the first day I could do it securely, with free Windows software(and my 
Linux SSHD server on the static IP)
   I have a few questions for people that have done this before.

1.  I disabled type 1 ssh keys, since type 2 keys seem to be more 
secure.  Is there any reason to allow type 1 keys?  I realize that some 
people may have to interface with software that only supports type 1 keys, 
but that does not apply to me.
2.  I generated my public keys with OpenSSH.  They work fine when I drive 
the customers Windows machine from my Linix machine at home.  I have not 
figured out how to import those public keys into Putty.  By googling, I 
find a bunch of references on how to take keys from Putty to OpenSSH, but 
that is the wrong direction for me.
3.  This Linux machine has a static IP and will stay up 24/7.  I am trying 
to figure out what I should do to the machine to make it relatively 
secure.  I've close obvious things like ftp and telnet.  I am tempted to 
close just about every port except the port I use for SSH, but I wonder if 
that is too drastic.  I have been reading a number of web sites, but I have 
not found one that seems authoritative.  Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance,
Ralph