sftp into OVH vps with root user not working

Question

I would like to use FileZilla to connect to my OVH vps using the SFTP protocol.

the server is running ubuntu 18.04 and is completely fresh. Nothing installed or changed.

I keep getting the error "Authentication failed" when trying to acces the server. root access via sftp is allowed in the config.

What am might i be doing wrong?

Answer 1

I assume that your VPS is setup for root login with a SSH key (if not, it should)(*).

The you have to make Filezilla use SSH key authentication using the same SSH key you use for login. In the site manager, in the General tab for that connection:

• Logon type: Key file
• User: root
• Keyfile: {your SSH key file}, likely someting like home/your_id/.ssh/id_rsa. Note: strangely, even when asked to list All files, the file selector in Filezilla won't list files without an extension, while the private key may not have one. You can work around this by selecting the public key (same name, with .pub extension), and then erasing the .pub part (or enter the whole path by hand...).

(*) Some people will recommend that you shouldn't even login as root, just set up a bunch of priviledged userids that can sudo.