Dashboard console access with SSH keys?

April 23, 2014 8.8k views
tph
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tph
I set up a droplet with an SSH key for remote access. How can I use the "console access" area of my dashboard for the droplet? It wants a password, but no password is available when using SSH keys.
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3 Answers
kamaln7 MOD April 23, 2014
The remote console does not use OpenSSH to log in to your droplet so you will not be able to use SSH keys to do that.
What you can do is reset the password for the root account (run the command passwd as root), disable password log in for the root user by setting PermitRootLogin to without-password which should still allow you to use your SSH keys to log in to your droplet but not the password (again, this only applied to the SSH server), and use the new password to log in via the Remote Console.
Hope that helps!
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sianios April 23, 2014
Use the command "passwd" to change the password, no previous password is required, or do a Root Password Reset for your droplet.
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sean615244 October 9, 2014

In case anyone else has this problem also (the reason I would need to access via web console is because i obviously am not at my terminal at home)... So, you can view the droplet and reset password from there. You will get an email with the new password, and then you can log in, and set your own root password.

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