root password doesn't work for ssh
 

I'm using Centos 4.2. When I console into my server the root password is fine, but when I try to ssh into the server the root password doesn't work. I checked sshd_config and verified root login is enabled. I'm not sure what else to do. Please help

Thanks,

linuxuser00

well you shouldn't be doing this anyway. if you can 1) ssh into the box as a normal user and 2) su to become root then you have a vastly prefeable solution in terms of security.

Is there another way to fix it without creating a user account?

you shoudl never never not have a normal user account... that said it should be possible if your ssh server permits a root login. show us the sshd_config file and also check /var/log/secure for possible reasons for being rejected.

mind you, you sound like you've *never* logged in through ssh, if you've only got a root user...

simple, check /etc/sshd.conf or /etc/sshd/sshd.conf for the line
"allow_root_login=no"and change it to "yes"
note: if there is a "#" in front of the line, remove it.

second note: running an ssh-server with root-allowed is VERRY dangerous, i would reccoment adding a user just for the sake of security.

best i would reccomend is the following:

useradd -G users,wheel username
passwd username

and then using this user to login in ssh using "su" as told above.
choice is yours, but the risk is yours as well.

Thanks to everyone who replied to this thread! :) You're right, I don't have a lot of experience with ssh or Linux. I'm learning as I go allowing. Anyway, after hours of troubleshooting it was my mistake, (I had assigned it an unavailable IP address. The reason why I could ssh to it was because the info was not saved in the ifcfg-eth0 file). After reading further about security issues and ssh I decided to take everyones advice and disable "PermitRootLogin".

thanks again!

linuxuser00 :newbie: