Droplet Web Console Outputting Random Characters

Question

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!

gesp · Accepted Answer

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!

alexdo · Answer

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/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.

Login to the console on 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 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

alexdo · Answer