How do I allow ssh login to non-root user

Posted on May 23, 2024

Startups

Droplets

By Chris Hunter-Johnson

I have created a new user with: adduser ssadmin

Update authorisations usermod -aG sudo ssadmin

But when I try ssh ssadmin@178.62.71.229 I get ssadmin@178.62.71.229: Permission denied (publickey)

How do I assign the SSH to the new user

there is no issue logging in as root@178.62.71.229

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Bobby

May 23, 2024

Hey!

To allow SSH login for the non-root user ssadmin, you need to copy the SSH public key from the root user’s .ssh/authorized_keys file to the ssadmin user’s .ssh/authorized_keys file.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do this:

Login as root:
```
ssh root@178.62.71.229
```
Create the .ssh directory for the new user and set the correct permissions:
```
mkdir -p /home/ssadmin/.ssh
chmod 700 /home/ssadmin/.ssh
```
Copy the root user’s authorized_keys file to the new user’s .ssh directory:
```
cp /root/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/ssadmin/.ssh/
```
Change the ownership of the .ssh directory and the authorized_keys file to the new user:
```
chown -R ssadmin:ssadmin /home/ssadmin/.ssh
```
Set the correct permissions for the authorized_keys file:
```
chmod 600 /home/ssadmin/.ssh/authorized_keys
```

After completing these steps, you should be able to SSH into the server as the ssadmin user using the same public key authentication method:

ssh ssadmin@178.62.71.229

Let me know how it goes!

Best,

Bobby

KFSys

May 23, 2024

Heya @chrishunterjohnsonseal,

By default Droplets come with PasswordAuthentication disabled. As such, I’ll recommend you to add an SSH key for the user.

To do so, you’ll need to go to the user’s Home directory, create a directory called .ssh and inside that directory create the file authorized_keys. Inside the file paste the public SSH key for your user.

For further details you can check this Docs page as well:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/add-ssh-keys/