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I am setting up a user account to log into the server through SSH. The user name is 'sam'

sudo useradd sam

This created a /home/sam directory. I created a .ssh directory and wrote a public key to the authorized_keys file within this directory. I was able to log into the system using Putty and FileZilla (using the corresponding private key, of course)

However now I do this:

sudo usermod -d  some_other_directory  sam

Then I created .ssh within the above new home directory and created the authorized_keys file....all with appropriate permissions and ownerships (sam owner and sam group). I am not able to log into the system at all now....The second I change the home directory back to /home/sam I am again able to log in.....any ideas about what I am doing wrong here?

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  • is ownship OK along the path from / to some_other_directory ? – Archemar Nov 19 '16 at 10:46
  • 'sam' is the owner of 'some_other_directory'...but this directory is deep into the system and the directories above it are owned by other users. – Nikster2014 Nov 19 '16 at 22:34
  • you need r-x access for sam all along the path from / – Archemar Nov 19 '16 at 22:40
  • And how do I do that :) The new home directory for the user is /var/www/html/websitename/html – Nikster2014 Nov 20 '16 at 1:40
  • And how do I do that? :) The 'some_other_directory' is /var/www/html/websitename/html – Nikster2014 Nov 20 '16 at 1:43
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Check /var/log/auth.log or /var/log/secure or other similar file depends on your system. There is a chance you will find some records like:

sshd[32458]: Authentication refused: bad ownership or modes for directory some_other_directory

And after you chould check ownerships and modes for that folder and fix it accoridngly: your home directory and .ssh must not have group and others write permissions.

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  • I did chmod 700 for the .ssh directory and chmod 600 for the authorized_keys directory. What permissions do I need to set for the user's home directory? Thanks! – Nikster2014 Nov 19 '16 at 19:37
  • Home directory should have 700, 751 or 755. Personaly I prefer 751, you could also try that mode. – Fedor Dikarev Nov 19 '16 at 20:13
  • Didn't work! I have all the permissions set up correctly. Putty is saying 'server refused our key' even though the authorized key file was copied from /home/sam (which was working just fine) – Nikster2014 Nov 19 '16 at 22:35
  • Please share permissions, last errors from ssh and number of lines on authorized_keys file. Next commands may help you: whoami; ls -ld some_other_directory some_other_directory/.ssh some_other_directory/.ssh/authorized_keys; wc -l some_other_directory/.ssh/authorized_keys; egrep -c -w 'ssh-[rd]sa' some_other_directory/.ssh/authorized_keys; sudo tail /var/log/secure. And you could add this information to your main post so it will be easier to read and understand your problem. – Fedor Dikarev Nov 20 '16 at 9:07
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It's possible that you have Selinuxenabled and it blocks access for authorized_keys outside /home folder. Here is Centos forum thread how to fix that issue.

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