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Richard
Asked: 2012-08-04 04:05:49 +0800 CST

What is the password for ``ssh root@localhost``?

  • 772

I need to ssh to localhost using root account, by ssh root@localhost. When it prompts for passwords, I can not login with all possible passwords. On setting of localhost machine, regular user xxx and root user share the same password (the password that works for sudo -s), but it does not works for ssh root@localhost. So where to look at the password for ssh root@localhost

PS: with the password, I can login to regular account on ssh xxx@localhost.

PPS: to answer further questions on motivation of doing so, localhost is just a computer in a private network and setting up ssh root@localhost is just to relieve some manual management in a prototype system.

ssh

6 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    ssh root@localhost uses the same password for root. It looks like you have not set root password. To do that log in as root using sudo -s then use passwd command to set root password.

    After that you must be able to ssh as root

    • 21

  2. If you decide to use the root account.

    Disable the ability to log in over ssh with root if ssh is exposed to internet. Instead login as a user, and su to root.

    This will make sure to prevent brute force attacks against your computer. Since its harder to guess both the user and password. Knowing the username one would only have to brute force the password

    changing the line:

    PermitRootLogin yes

    under /etc/ssh/sshd_config

    to

    PermitRootLogin no

    and run:

    service sshd restart

    to reload the configuration.

    • 8

  3. Login as a normal user and use sudo -i to drop to a root shell.

    You should not use the root account or change it's password for the matter.

    • 7

  4. The user root is not enabled and is not capable of doing a log in, you can see that doing so:

    sudo grep root /etc/shadow

    the field that usually contains an encrypted password is filled with a !.

    If you read the shadow(5) manpage you will get this

    If the password field contains some string that is not a valid result of crypt(3), for instance ! or *, the user will not be able to use a unix password to log in (but the user may log in the system by other means).

    You should not enable the user root for security reasons.

    • 4

  5. set root password using following command

    sudo passwd
    • 0

  6. They answered your question about login to ssh with non super user (say [email protected] -p 22).

    First create another account without su privleges. After you log into ssh as a non super user you can enter this command to switch to root (escalate your privileges):

    su

    And enter password.

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