Ssh prompts for password despite ssh-copy-id

ssh

I've been using public key authentication on a remote server for some time now for remote shell use as well as for sshfs mounts. After forcing a umount of my sshfs directory, I noticed that ssh began to prompt me for a password. I tried purging the remote .ssh/authorized_keys from any mention the local machine, and I cleaned the local machine from references to the remote machine. I then repeated my ssh-copy-id, it prompted me for a password, and returned normally. But lo and behold, when I ssh to the remote server I am still prompted for a password. I'm a little confused as to what the issue could be, any suggestions?

Best Answer

sshd gets weird about permissions on $HOME, $HOME/.ssh (both directories) and on $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys.

One of my linux boxes ended up with drwxrwxrwx permissions on my $HOME directory. An Arch linux box absolutely would not log in using public keys until I removed 'w' permission for group, other on my $HOME directory.

Try making $HOME and $HOME/.ssh/ have more restrictive permissions for group and other. See if that doesn't let sshd do its stuff.

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Ssh – Why ssh-copy-id prompts for the local user password three times

ssh-copy-id is just a wrapper shell script performing these steps:

Find the public key(s), this includes talking to the SSH agent for which keys it has available.
log in to the remote server like any other SSH client
copy one or more public keys to the remote server in a file .ssh/authorized_keys, including creating the directory if it does not exist with the right permissions.

You can see for yourself what it is doing by reading the /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id. Copy over the file, add some debugging to the code to see what happens and what the values of variables are during the execution.

Ssh – Still getting a password prompt with ssh with public key authentication

-rw-rw-r--. 1 srvFlink srvFlink  406 Aug 18 04:45 authorized_keys

should be

-rw-r--r--. 1 srvFlink srvFlink  406 Aug 18 04:45 authorized_keys

as noted in the post you linked in your question, where the accepted answer reads in part "Your home directory ~, your ~/.ssh directory and the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the remote machine must be writable only by you"

You also don't post the permissions on your home directory in the question; ensure that those are also not group- or other-writable.

Best Answer

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Ssh – Why ssh-copy-id prompts for the local user password three times

Ssh – Still getting a password prompt with ssh with public key authentication

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