can't login unless root

Posted May 14, 2017
Getting Started Quickstart Security FAQ Deployment Ubuntu 16.04

I made a droplet with ssh keys selected, logged in as root perfectly fine, did “adduser demo” and “gpasswd -a demo sudo”. When i try to ssh in as demo@xxx.xxx.xxx i get a “Permission denied (publickey).” but when i try again as root@xxx.xxx.xxx its perfectly fine.

CrustyWang69

ozwiz • September 23, 2019

Most of the answers are outright wrong.

What you need is to add the ssh key to your non-root account. Since you already have ssh keys in root’s user directory. All you need is to execute this command:

rsync --archive --chown=non_root_user:non_root_user ~/.ssh /home/non_root_user

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Flamber Hansen • May 14, 2017

Accepted Answer

Hi @CrustyWang69

You need to edit the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config and edit/add this line: