Question

Can't copy/paste into new console!

Posted on August 12, 2021
Ubuntu 18.04
Asked by ndam

I was forced to update my console on Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS and now copy/paste is not working… any idea why?

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alexdo

Site Moderator

• August 12, 2021

Accepted Answer

Hello, @ndam

The Copy/Paste functionality of our web console is a bit odd; the code backing it is custom due to the way the VNC window is implemented for accessing your Droplet. It isn’t a good idea, in my experience, to rely on the console for long copy/pasting like an SSH key.

My recommended method to get the key on the Droplet is over SSH itself. You can refer to the below articles:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/connect-with-ssh/ https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/connect-with-ssh/openssh/ https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/connect-with-ssh/putty/

You can enable PasswordAuthentication for your Droplet by modifying your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file. Once set to Yes restart the SSH service and connect via an SSH client for a more stable connection. You can then modify your ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file to add the appropriate public key.

This should do the job for you as well.

The other option is to temporary enable the PasswordAuthentication from no to yes in order to access your droplet using password and then once you’ve entered your key to disable the PasswordAuthentication again. This way is considered more secure than uploading the key to a Dropbox in case you don’t have any other server to us.

Log in to the console on the DigitalOcean website.
Type sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Change PasswordAuthentication from “no” to “yes” and save the file
Open a terminal on your computer and type ssh username@[hostname or IP address] or if on a Windows box use PuTTY for password login making sure authentication parameters aren’t pointing to a private key
Login with a password
Type sudo nano ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
Paste public key text here and save the file
Type sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Change PasswordAuthentication from “yes” to “no” and save the file
Log out and attempt to log back in (if using PuTTY make sure you set up auth parameters to point to your private key)

Hope that this helps! Regards, Alex

kcelestinomaria127 • August 18, 2021

Hello there @ndam , and @alexdo , I am running a Digital Ocean Ubuntu 20.04 Server through my terminal on Windows Powershell, and when I try to paste copied text or commands onto the terminal in order to execute a command, it does not materialize. This happens when I copy anything from the terminal itself or even from the web and try to paste it beside a command. How do I solve it? I reckon it is a problem on the server configuration because when I ssh out of the server and back onto my local PC’s terminal, everything works out well when I try to copy and paste commands, i.e using CTRL + C and CTRL + V . I have seen the many links shared but they do not address this issue and seem to rely only on the context of the Digital Ocean web console, which is not in my case. Could you please assist me to figure out what is not happening on my side? Thank you.