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Accepted
Johannes Ernst
Asked: 2015-01-25 19:09:23 +0800 CST

User that can only logon with ssh keys, not password

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I'm trying to create a user on a Linux box that can only log on via ssh with a key specified in authorized_keys. The user should not be able to log on via password, neither via ssh nor locally at the console. How would I do this?

Currently I do:

useradd -m myuser
passwd myuser
vi /etc/shadow

and replace the password field with '*'. There must be a better way? If I don't set the passwd first, ssh won't work either saying in the log "User myuser not allowed because account is locked"

ssh

2 Answers

  1. Give them a password and don't tell them what it is.

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  2. Best Answer

    passwd -l myuser will effectively disable user password

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