Question
re: root and ssh keys
- Posted March 12, 2014
hi there, I’ve seen that this question has been partially answered elsewhere but hasn’t quite got to the nub of it. I understand that I should not be using root and instead use sudo. I set up the droplet with an ssh key and added a new user. The problem being that now that user has password login. Should I be setting up ssh key to log in with this new non-root user? surely otherwise I’m reintroducing the same security flaw that was the reason for using ssh keys in the first place. And if I should be setting this up how do I go about it?
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I would advise you to use whatever login method you need for standard users, and use the SSH key defined in the DO Dashboard, as the key for root. <br> <br>What I mean is, in /etc/ssh/sshd_config, set PermitRootLogin like so: <br>PermitRootLogin without-password <br> <br>That way, you still can SSH login as root in case of emergency, whilst disallowing password-based authentication for root.
Yes you should use setup SSH keys for the new user, and disable ssh as root too. <br> <br>Take a look at the following page for additional details: <br>https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-set-up-ssh-keys--2 <br> <br>In short you need to generate a ssh key pair, and copy the id_rsa.pub to the new users ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on your VPS. <br>