Unable to ssh EC2 using password - "Disconnected: No supported authentication methods available (server sent: publickey)"

Question

I have followed the following steps

https://coderwall.com/p/j5nk9w

This is what I did

1) $ sudo useradd -s /bin/bash -m -d /home/newuser -g root newuser

Entered the Password for the newuser

2)$ sudo visudo And added after root newuser ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

3) $ sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config Changed and set PasswordAuthentication as yes in /etc/ssh/sshd_config

4) sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart Restarted the sshd

But when I try to login via Putty I get the following error:

"Disconnected: No supported authentication methods available (server sent: publickey)"

This is my /etc/ssh/sshd_config file

# Package generated configuration file # See the sshd_config(5) manpage for details # What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for Port 22 # Use these options to restrict which interfaces/protocols sshd will bind to #ListenAddress :: #ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 Protocol 2 # HostKeys for protocol version 2 HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key #Privilege Separation is turned on for security UsePrivilegeSeparation yes # Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key KeyRegenerationInterval 3600 ServerKeyBits 1024 # Logging SyslogFacility AUTH LogLevel INFO # Authentication: LoginGraceTime 120 PermitRootLogin without-password StrictModes yes RSAAuthentication yes PubkeyAuthentication yes #AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys # Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files IgnoreRhosts yes # For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts RhostsRSAAuthentication no # similar for protocol version 2 HostbasedAuthentication no # Uncomment if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for RhostsRSAAuthentication #IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes # To enable empty passwords, change to yes (NOT RECOMMENDED) PermitEmptyPasswords no # Change to yes to enable challenge-response passwords (beware issues with # some PAM modules and threads) ChallengeResponseAuthentication no # Change to no to disable tunnelled clear text passwords PasswordAuthentication yes # Kerberos options #KerberosAuthentication no #KerberosGetAFSToken no #KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes #KerberosTicketCleanup yes # GSSAPI options #GSSAPIAuthentication no #GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes X11Forwarding yes X11DisplayOffset 10 PrintMotd no PrintLastLog yes TCPKeepAlive yes #UseLogin no #MaxStartups 10:30:60 #Banner /etc/issue.net # Allow client to pass locale environment variables AcceptEnv LANG LC_* Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server # Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing, # and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will # be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and # PasswordAuthentication. Depending on your PAM configuration, # PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass # the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password". # If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without # PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication # and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'. UsePAM yes 

I understand this is risky and this is not for a public project.

I appreciate any help.

Answer 1

As others noted at the linked page, this is a bad idea. Passwords are generally much less secure than using public/private key pairs.

That said, if the server sent just publickey it isn't using the new configuration yet. Try restarting sshd.

Answer 2

1. vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

2. Edit the file

   # Authentication: LoginGraceTime 120 PermitRootLogin without-password StrictModes yes 

   Please edit the permitRootLogin in the file shown above.

   After the changes:

   # Authentication: LoginGraceTime 120 PermitRootLogin yes StrictModes 

3. Please restart your ssh service using this command:

   /etc/init.d/ssh restart 

Answer 3

To save some Ubuntu neophytes like myself some time, newer Ubuntu instances no longer use sshd reload. Instead it is asking for:

sudo restart ssh 

Please see this SO link for more details: https://superuser.com/questions/214799/no-etc-init-d-sshd-file-ubuntu-ec2