I have reviewed every document I could find and have not found a solution to my problem. I am attempting to access my Droplet using SSH from Windows PowerShell. SSH is running and I can access the droplet console through the Droplet control panel on the web site. From there I can log in using SSH (as a test) with two users (root and my own). /etc/ssh/sshd_config has PasswordAuthentication yes ChallengeResponseAuthentication no I know the passwords are correct. After my login is denied I can see the following lines in the SSH log: pam_unix(sshd:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty=ssh ruser= rhost=<ipaddress> user=<username> Failed password for <user> from <ipaddress> port 52463 ssh2 Connection reset by authenticating user <user> <ipaddress> port 52463 [preauth] Any ideas?

Question

Cannot Access SSH Remotely

Posted on September 9, 2022
DigitalOcean Droplets
Asked by jamesmichaelford

I have reviewed every document I could find and have not found a solution to my problem. I am attempting to access my Droplet using SSH from Windows PowerShell.

SSH is running and I can access the droplet console through the Droplet control panel on the web site. From there I can log in using SSH (as a test) with two users (root and my own).

/etc/ssh/sshd_config has

PasswordAuthentication yes
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

I know the passwords are correct.

After my login is denied I can see the following lines in the SSH log:

pam_unix(sshd:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty=ssh ruser= rhost=<ipaddress> user=<username>
Failed password for <user> from <ipaddress> port 52463 ssh2
Connection reset by authenticating user <user> <ipaddress> port 52463 [preauth]

Any ideas?

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alexdo

Site Moderator

• September 12, 2022

Hello there,

I had a similar issue in the past and this thread came handy for me

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-security-4/ssh-login-failed-pam_unix-authentication-failure-error-4175489975/

Regards

Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• September 11, 2022

Hi there,

It looks like the password that you are trying to use is incorrect or possibly it contains a special character like @ which might not be interpreted by Powershell correctly.

What I could suggest is changing your password so that it does not have any special characters as a test and giving it another try.

Let me know how it goes!

Best,

Bobby