Password denied in SCP

Question

I have a problem of SSH saying the password is incorrect (even though it’s right). I have gone through similar posts, but I did not find them helpful as I'm a newbie to this.

Here is the background info: I need to copy some files from Windows (SSH server is running here; SSH server is running by SolarWinds SFTP/SCP server) to a Linux system on proprietary hardware.

My SCP server folder was set on Desktop --> C:\Users\XYZ\Desktop\TFTP_Jani

At first, I tried doing simple scp on Linux

scp XYZ@192.268.12.12:/dump/testfile.txt .  

This asked for adding to known-hosts and asked for password .. and it worked

Since I was automating the copy process, I wanted to get rid of password authentication every time, so I tried adding/changing public-key pairs after doing a Google search on the topic.

... and now I cannot even ssh, it always throws me Password denied.

If anyone can please spare some time and help me out, it would be great

please do let me know if you have any questions

• what I did

  I tried to set up new RSA key and DSA keys on Windows and also tried to disable the password authentication in sshd_config file in Linux. I guess I'm not sure if remember the stuff I tried to disable password authentication

Here is the output of cat sshd_config:

:/etc/ssh# cat sshd_config
#       $OpenBSD: sshd_config,v 1.103 2018/04/09 20:41:22 tj Exp $

# This is the sshd server system-wide configuration file.  See
# sshd_config(5) for more information.

# This sshd was compiled with PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/xyz/bin

# The strategy used for options in the default sshd_config shipped with
# OpenSSH is to specify options with their default value where
# possible, but leave them commented.  Uncommented options override the
# default value.

#Port 22
#AddressFamily any
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
#ListenAddress ::

HostKey /storage/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /storage/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
HostKey /storage/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key

# Ciphers and keying
#RekeyLimit default none

# Logging
#SyslogFacility AUTH
#LogLevel INFO

# Authentication:

#LoginGraceTime 2m
PermitRootLogin yes
#StrictModes yes
MaxAuthTries 6
#MaxSessions 10

#PubkeyAuthentication yes

# The default is to check both .ssh/authorized_keys and .ssh/authorized_keys2
# but this is overridden so installations will only check .ssh/authorized_keys
AuthorizedKeysFile      .ssh/authorized_keys

#AuthorizedPrincipalsFile none

#AuthorizedKeysCommand none
#AuthorizedKeysCommandUser nobody

# For this to work you will also need host keys in /storage/ssh/ssh_known_hosts
#HostbasedAuthentication no
# Change to yes if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for
# HostbasedAuthentication
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts no
# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
#IgnoreRhosts yes

# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
PasswordAuthentication yes
#PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Change to no to disable s/key passwords
ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes

# Kerberos options
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#KerberosTicketCleanup yes
#KerberosGetAFSToken no

# GSSAPI options
#GSSAPIAuthentication no
#GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes

# Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing,
# and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will
# be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and
# PasswordAuthentication.  Depending on your PAM configuration,
# PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass
# the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password".
# If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without
# PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication
# and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'.
#UsePAM no

#AllowAgentForwarding yes
#AllowTcpForwarding yes
#GatewayPorts no
#X11Forwarding no
#X11DisplayOffset 10
#X11UseLocalhost yes
#PermitTTY yes
#PrintMotd yes
#PrintLastLog yes
#TCPKeepAlive yes
#PermitUserEnvironment no
#Compression delayed
#ClientAliveInterval 0
#ClientAliveCountMax 3
#UseDNS no
#PidFile /var/run/sshd.pid
#MaxStartups 10:30:100
#PermitTunnel no
#ChrootDirectory none
#VersionAddendum none

# no default banner path
#Banner none

# override default of no subsystems
Subsystem       sftp    internal-sftp

# Example of overriding settings on a per-user basis
#Match User anoncvs
#       X11Forwarding no
#       AllowTcpForwarding no
#       PermitTTY no
#       ForceCommand cvs server

Answer 1

If you delete the .ssh/known_hosts and the relevant public key entry for the Windows machine on your computer, this will allow you to ssh to it using just a password - as the key pair will be gone.

Thenewboston has a playlist on the topic of Linux system management. Videos 14 - 17 are very relevant to your situation (SSH key authentication & disabling password login).