(Bug) Create droplet with SSH then disable SSH for root

December 28, 2015 2.2k views
Security Ubuntu
Mehdiway
By:
Mehdiway

I found a bug when I followed the first steps to creating a securing the server.

The problem :

You don't know the password for root when creating a droplet with an ssh key

Reproduce the problem :

  1. Create a droplet with an ssh key
  2. Connect to server with ssh key
  3. Create a new user and add ssh connection
  4. Disable ssh for root (security measure)
  5. Try to do sudo with the new user

You're asked to enter a password for root but DigitalOcean didn't send the password by email because I created the droplet with an ssh key.

4 comments
  • azaraks December 28, 2015

    Weird since it should ask password of the new user.. Is that username on sudoer list?

  • Mehdiway December 28, 2015

    Yes I added the new user to sudo group, but without a password.

    I created a .ssh folder on the home directory with a authorized_keys file containing my public key

  • Mehdiway December 29, 2015

    I just noticed the option to reset root password from Access menu of the droplet.

  • jamieson December 29, 2015

    You have to exit your login session and re-login in in order to pick up the new sudo group membership permissions. (or use Userify, but that will only do the user creation part... disabling root is still recommended.)

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1 Answer
eris MOD December 30, 2015

Hey there,

That's not really a bug: it works this way across pretty much every Linux distribution. "sudo" asks for the current user's password (if a password at all), not the root password. "su" is what asks for the root password.

Generally, what we recommend is setting a password for the new user when you create the root user, but keeping passwords disabled over SSH. This way, you have a password you can use when sudo-ing and logging in through our VNC Console, but SSH remains secure. That's how I set up most of my droplets, and it works quite nicely.

I hope that helps! :)

Best,
Eris
Platform Support Specialist

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