ssh to "root" works but to "user" don't
 

I installed the openssh server in my n900 and it asked to create a password for the root account. ok.

When I ssh root@192.168.0.5 it asks the password and I can login.
Then I created the /root/.ssh/authorized_keys file by copying in it the pub key of my desktop account. Now I can ssh to the N900 without entering the password. Until here was all as expected.

The problem is that if I create the /home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys file as above, the ssh client asks me to enter a password (that doesn't exists - does it?) insted of using the keyfile access.

Anybody managed to ssh into the user account?

Re: ssh to "root" works but to "user" don't
 

You can't SSH onto the N900 as 'user', because in /etc/passwd the second field, where the password would normally be, contains an exclamation mark. This effectively disables the account as far as logon access is concerned.

The solution I put in place was to create a new user account under a different name and set the UID and GID in /etc/passwd to 29999, the same as the 'user' account. Set your new account to have '/home/user' as it's home directory and put a password on it using the regular 'passwd' command.

You can then SSH onto the N900 as the user you just created, then do 'sudo gainroot' if you need root access.

This also means that you can edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and disable root logins, which gives a little bit of extra security. Don't forget to restart the SSH daemon to make this take effect.

Re: ssh to "root" works but to "user" don't
 

you just need to enable the user account, since you're going to use key authorization anyways. setting a password for user is not recommended.

a description can be found here (post #23).

Re: ssh to "root" works but to "user" don't
 

thank you both, i tried to unlock the user account with "passwd -u user", it says: "Password changed.", but I can not connect to the user account yet. The idea of crating an account "mirrored" to user is nice, but I would like to better understand what's going on.

any idea?

Re: ssh to "root" works but to "user" don't
 

did you copy the file authorized_keys as root into your user folder?
if so, you first have to issue this in xterm as root:
this changes ownership of the directory .ssh to "user", and the group ownership to "users".
also, make sure your private key file (if you have one on your N900) is safe:

Re: ssh to "root" works but to "user" don't
 

Why is setting the user password and login as active not a good idea?

Re: ssh to "root" works but to "user" don't
 

Milhouse described it in the post i mentioned.

SSH, by default, will NOT accept empty passwords, so a user without a password can't be "brute forced". if the user has a password and the SSH daemon is running, anyone on the same WiFi could try to crack the user password.

of course, if you allow root login (which is default) and password authentication (which is also default), the same is true for the root user :)

key authentication is simply the most secure option.

there might be other implications when using a user password that i'm not aware of.

Re: ssh to "root" works but to "user" don't
 

For what it is worth, I had no problems in (a) setting a pasword for 'user', (b) entering the n900 with 'ssh user@192.168.1.101' and (c) using ssh-keygen to create a ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 with an empty passphrase for direct login without a password.

Using ssh to enter root with or without password is frowned upon though, and probably disabled by default in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.

Paai

Re: ssh to "root" works but to "user" don't
 

Just use a strong password and you'll be fine.

Re: ssh to "root" works but to "user" don't
 

i switced to user (su user) and then copied, thus no need to modify owner. I don't have a private key file on n900, is it required? for root is not!