How to enable root login

This will happen if you setup key-based authentication when creating the droplet, and then you regenerate a key, switch machines, or some how lose the key you used when creating the droplet.

To get around this you can take these steps (assumes ubuntu 16.0.4 + droplet, but you can google the command for your flavor):

1. login to digital ocean dashboard
2. find your droplet and click on it
3. On the left menu click “Access”
4. Click on the blue “Launch Console” button
5. Login to your server as your root user
6. Edit sshd_config to allow PasswordAuthentication vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config Make sure the line PasswordAuthentication yes is in the file and uncommented
7. Restart the ssh service systemctl restart ssh
8. Now you can ssh via UN/PW from a remote machine

I would recommend once you’ve done this, immediately add your public key to the appropriate authorized_keys file and return sshd config to PasswordAuthentication no

You can enable the root login as follow:

echo “PasswordAuthentication yes” >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config echo “PermitRootLogin yes” >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config service sshd restart

Regards, Pablo Silva

What happens when you can’t login using console either? This is literally a brand new droplet. No password was emailed initially so I reset root password from the access tab and received a new password via email. That password just displays as invalid login when attempting to login as @root from console.

I have the same problem - I can login with a public key, but I cannot run sudo. I have reset my root password and it has been emailed to me, but since passowrd login is disabled I cannot use this password to login as root/sudo. There seems to be a little problem in communication here, I guess?

This doesn’t seem to work for me. Root login only seems to work from web console, not from remote console.

Hi,

Root login over ssh can be enabled by the doing following steps,

Login as a root user. use any text editor, here i am using vim editor.

#vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

uncomment the line below line

PermitRootLogin yes

Then restart the sshd service. That’s it. Let me know if you face any issues.

Can you describe more about it. where you want to enable is it ssh?