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Question

Droplet Web Console Outputting Random Characters

Posted January 31, 2019 1.5k views
DigitalOceanLEMPUbuntu 18.04

Hi there,

After installing a simple LEMP droplet I’ve noticed the web console outputting random characters when I paste a string. I’ve also noticed a lot of my letters randomly change from capital letters to non-capital letters.

I’ve tried it on a Mac computer with several configs of keyboard layouts and I’ve also tried it on a Windows computer with a US keyboard. On both systems I used several browsers and nothing worked.

With this happening, using the web console is just impossible. Any clues on why this is happening?

Thank you in advance!

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gesp
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gesp

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3 answers
gesp January 31, 2019

Just received an answer from the Digital Ocean support team saying this is a known issue that they have been looking into, but since the solution is not very straightforward, they don’t really know when we can see this fixed.

Cheers!

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  • markus March 26, 2020

    Same issue here, a year later. Did you fix it eventually, or just a new install? I’ll try a fresh installed droplet and just migrate my containers across, see if that helps.

    Reply Report
    • gesp March 26, 2020

      Hey! I would like to help you, but I’m going to be honest, I don’t really remember how I solved my problem. I’m pretty sure starting a new droplet fresh fixes that problem, so I’d suggest you try that :)

      Reply Report
alexdo December 3, 2020

Hello, all

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 enable PasswordAuthentication for your Droplet by modifying your /etc/ssh/sshdconfig 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/authorizedkeys 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.

  1. Login to the console on DigitalOcean website.
  2. Type sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
  3. Change PasswordAuthentication from “no” to “yes” and save the file
  4. 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
  5. Login with password
  6. Type sudo nano ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
  7. Paste public key text here and save the file
  8. Type sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
  9. Change PasswordAuthentication from “yes” to “no” and save the file
  10. 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

Reply Report
alexdo December 5, 2020

Hello, all

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 enable PasswordAuthentication for your Droplet by modifying your /etc/ssh/sshdconfig 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/authorizedkeys 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.

  1. Login to the console on DigitalOcean website.
  2. Type sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
  3. Change PasswordAuthentication from “no” to “yes” and save the file
  4. 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
  5. Login with password
  6. Type sudo nano ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
  7. Paste public key text here and save the file
  8. Type sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
  9. Change PasswordAuthentication from “yes” to “no” and save the file
  10. 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

Reply Report

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