Max grabbed the journal (attached), which explains what's going on: openssh-server is not already installed, the first boot installs it. But this happens in /etc/rc.local, which we run fairly early (right after the network is up). In the journal we see roughly this order:
784:Apr 08 13:52:27 utah-12201-xenial-amd64 systemd[1]: Reached target Network. 899:Apr 08 13:52:35 utah-12201-xenial-amd64 utah[1046]: Installing openssh-server... 900:Apr 08 13:52:35 utah-12201-xenial-amd64 sudo[1047]: root : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/ ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/apt-get install -y openssh-server --force-yes 940:Apr 08 13:53:47 utah-12201-xenial-amd64 systemd[1]: Reached target Login Prompts. 941:Apr 08 13:53:47 utah-12201-xenial-amd64 systemd[1]: Reached target Multi-User System. 942:Apr 08 13:53:47 utah-12201-xenial-amd64 systemd[1]: Reached target Graphical Interface. I. e. installing the openssh-server package is happening while the boot transaction is still going on; installing new units during that time won't cause the dependency tree of graphical.target to be recomputed, so it's not taken into account for starting. A cleaner way would be to install openssh-server during OS install, not as part of first boot. Another option is to wait until the VM is booted, and then install it (if you have some way to access the VM in another way than ssh, such as the serial console). A more hackish, but perhaps simpler way would be to change rc.local to wait until the system is booted with something like while true; do s=`systemctl is-system-running` || true [ "$s" != running -a "$s" != degraded ] || break sleep 1 done and only then install openssh-server. (Checking for "degraded" is more robust in case the default installtion has some broken units which fail to start. This happens from time to time, like bug 1567780) ** Attachment added: "journal from first boot" https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openssh/+bug/1554266/+attachment/4629081/+files/journal.txt ** Changed in: openssh (Ubuntu) Status: Incomplete => Triaged ** Package changed: openssh (Ubuntu) => utah -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1554266 Title: sshd does not start on newly installed desktop system To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/utah/+bug/1554266/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs