Question

How to revert to password login from ssh key login for root

Hello, I was working to add a new user on our droplet, and I accidentally disabled the root user ssh key login. Is there a way to revert back to password login for the root user? If I set PasswordAuthentication to yes in sshd_config and restart ssh, it still asks for the password for the SSH key when I login with root.

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alexdo • February 17, 2021

Hello, @avebury

In order to enable the password level authentication, you need to set the PasswordAuthentication to yes in /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Once this is done you can restart the ssh service and give it another try. You can also check the value of PubkeyAuthentication in the sshd_config as well.

If you’re still getting the prompt the passphrase for your ssh-key you can make sure that you connect to the droplet without specifying the use of an ssh-key in your ssh client.

Also, the droplet default setting is the PasswordAuthentication in case you do not have any ssh-keys configured.

If you want to authenticate using an ssh-key you can disable the PasswordAuthentication by setting it to no and make sure that your ssh-key is also present in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file.

Regards, Alex