My sshd_config file did not have any DenyUsers/AllowUsers line but it did have this little sucker:
PermitRootLogin no :-) That did the trick. Thanks for drawing my attention to this file. Your observation about the dangers of allowing root to log in is good. I'm just running Linux on a partition on my home PC for graduate school work, this is not a commercial system. There is nothing valuable on my machine so there won't be any losses if there is a break-in and the root password is not a common dictionary word, so brute force might take a while. I just need root access for convenience for now. Thank you for your time! --- Bryan Phinney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Monday 05 January 2004 08:46 pm, George P. > Stathis wrote: > > Hello, I'm new to Linux and I'm running Mandrake > 9.2. > > I have just installed the sshd server that came > with > > the installation disks. > > > > My sshd service is running fine but I'm unable to > > login to localhost with the root password. I get: > > You might want to check your sshd server settings. > In the /etc/ssh directory > should be a sshd_config file that has your ssh > server configuration settings. > On mine in particular are lines: > DenyUsers root ftp ..... > AllowUsers blah,blah.... > > These specify that only particular users are allowed > to login via ssh and > specific users are disallowed from logging in via > ssh, including root. It is > a VERY bad idea to allow root to login via ssh since > that account is well > known by all and sundry and someone can effectively > use that account to try > to dictionary attack your machine to get access. > > At least with a user login, the person must > guess/know the username and then > try to brute force the password. Just another layer > of protection and no > reason to allow root direct login, you can login as > a user and su to root to > issue commands. > -- > Bryan Phinney > Software Test Engineer > > > > Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? > > Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com >
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
