Adding a public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys does not log me in automatically

Question

I added the public SSH key to the authorized_keys file. ssh localhost should log me in without asking for the password.

I did that and tried t

Answer 1

In my case I needed to put my authorized_keys file in .openssh.

This location is specified in /etc/ssh/sshd_config under the option AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys.

Answer 2

I have the home directory in a non-standard location and in sshd logs I have the following line, even if all permissions were just fine (see the other answers):

Could not open authorized keys '/data/home/user1/.ssh/authorized_keys': Permission denied

I have found a solution here: Trouble with ssh public key authentication to RHEL 6.5

In my particular case:

• Added a new line in /etc/selinux/targeted/contexts/files/file_contexts.homedirs:

• This is the original line for regular home directories:

  /home/[^/]*/\.ssh(/.*)? unconfined_u:object_r:ssh_home_t:s0

• This is my new line:

  /data/home/[^/]*/\.ssh(/.*)? unconfined_u:object_r:ssh_home_t:s0

• Followed by a restorecon -r /data/ and a sshd restart.

Answer 3

You need to verify the permissions of the authorized_keys file and the folder / parent folders in which it is located.

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

For more information see this page.

You may also need to change/verify the permissions of your home directory to remove write access for the group and others.

chmod go-w ~

Answer 4

The desperate may also make sure they don't have extra newlines in the authorized_keys file due to copying file id_rsa.pub's text out of a confused terminal.

Answer 5

Make sure that the target user has a password set. Run passwd username to set one. This was required for me even if password SSH login was disabled.

Answer 6

On that note, make sure your sshd configuration has this line:

PermitRootLogin without-password

Set as the above, and then restart sshd (/etc/init.d/sshd restart).

Log out and try log in in again!

The default, I believe, is:

PermitRootLogin no