“Access denied” when logging to Solaris virtual machine using ssh

Question

I have got a Solaris 10 on a VMware virtual machine in Windows. This is what I did:

1) Installed PuTTY.

2) Checked whether ssh is running or or not in my Solaris desktop as below:

    bash-3.00# ps -ef | grep sshd
    root  2001  2000   0 01:21:37 ?           0:00 /usr/lib/ssh/sshd
    root   602     1   0 23:28:23 ?           0:00 /usr/lib/ssh/sshd
    root  2000   602   0 01:21:37 ?           0:00 /usr/lib/ssh/sshd

3) Checked IP of my Solaris 10 VM:

bash-3.00# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu 8232 index 1
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
e1000g0: flags=1004843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DHCP,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 2
        inet 192.168.79.128 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.79.255
        ether 0:c:29:b6:1f:ec
lo0: flags=2002000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv6,VIRTUAL> mtu 8252 index 1
        inet6 ::1/128
e1000g0: flags=2004841<UP,RUNNING,MULTICAST,DHCP,IPv6> mtu 1500 index 2
        inet6 fe80::20c:29ff:feb6:1fec/10
        ether 0:c:29:b6:1f:ec

I am trying to connect using PuTTY with IP 192.168.79.128 on port 22 but this is what I am getting:

login as: root
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Password:
Access denied
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Password:

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Don't login as root over ssh; rather, create an user for logging in and then become root.

But editing /etc/ssh/sshd_config and adding the line PermitRootLogin yes (or changing if it's already set to No) should do it.

Answer 2

You need to allow PermitRootLogin in /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

PermitRootLogin yes

Another solution (preferable) is to add another user account with useradd user and set its password using passwd.

And after llogging as a regular user use su - to become a root

Answer 3

Remote root login is disabled by default. You should create another user to log in.

useradd -m -d /export/home/username username

And set a password

passwd username

If you do decide to allow remote root login, you need to edit the ssh configuration file to allow root login. First set this in /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Change the line that reads

PermitRootLogin yes

to read

PermitRootLogin yes

Then save the file and re-start the SSH daemon with

svcadm restart ssh