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SFTP Authentication Error

Posted on July 15, 2019

I can’t seem to SFTP into my droplet. I have no issues getting in via the console (user and password, not ssh)

I’ve tried:

Server: I’ve tried it using both the raw IP address and the domain name with A record pointing to the IP. Neither works.

username: root

Password: I’ve created 2 new passwords in the console. All work (with username root) via the console. Neither worked in SFTP.

Port: Using port 22. Port 22 is allowed, when I look at ufw in the console.

Firewall: I’ve also tried completely disabling the firewall. That failed. When I tried enabling the firewall again, with tcp/22 There was no change.

I’ve tried powering down and the restarting the whole droplet. Also, droplet is original, not from a backup or snapshot.

Using Cyberduck for SFTP.

The error message I get is: "Login failed. Exhausted available authentication methods. Please contact your web hosting service provider for assistance. Please contact your web hosting service provider for assistance."



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My mistake. I did it correctly in the file. I mistakenly added it here. It still isn’t working properly.

A Mac. Thank you so much!

Hello,

I think that SSH password authentication is disabled in your sshd config.

You could do one of those two things here:

  • Try adding your private SSH key to your Cyber Duck. You can do that by following these steps here:

1 Launch Cyberduck. 2 Click “+” button in the lower left to set up a connection. 3 Input the following information, and check the box “Use Public Key Authentication”. 4 Select the saved private key. 5 Enter the private key passphrase, and then click login.

NOTE: in order to do that you should upload your public key to your ~/.ssh/authorized_keys first.

  • This is less secure I would say, but you could enable password authentication in your sshd config file:

To enable SSH password authentication, you must SSH in as root to edit this file:

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

Then, change the line

PasswordAuthentication no

to

PasswordAuthentication yes

After making that change, restart the SSH service by running the following command as root:

sudo systemctl restart ssh

Hope that this helps! Bobby

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