20
4
I have a user without a password set (i.e. passwd -d
).
I would not like to use public keys on this setup.
Is there a way to SSH login to such a user?
20
4
I have a user without a password set (i.e. passwd -d
).
I would not like to use public keys on this setup.
Is there a way to SSH login to such a user?
18
PermitEmptyPasswords yes
then restart sshd ?
7@ProBackup you'll have to add ssh
to /etc/securetty
for this to work. – Ruslan – 2017-11-29T19:16:01.173
^ THIS, thanks @Ruslan ! – Tony Bogdanov – 2019-06-10T06:35:47.750
2This works, but is horribly insecure. – Piskvor left the building – 2012-01-31T12:31:26.940
For sure, but well, as said : I would not like to use public keys on this setup. – lovethebomb – 2012-01-31T16:43:18.480
4With Ubuntu 13.10 PermitEmptyPasswords yes
doesn't let the user with an empty password set login, even after a reboot. – Pro Backup – 2014-02-12T06:42:08.013
2
If you just want to become the user in question, the simplest way is to log in as some other user (via ssh) and su $username
. This requires root privilegies, but you could put the command in /etc/sudoers
and only let your user execute that command as root.
If you really want to login through ssh (or remotely in some other way), you need to pick one of the following:
This is a little confused: 1) su
is not sudo
2) with sudo
the "as root" does not apply. While using su
is an option, I (as a former Unix sysadmin) would rather see a focus on the use of sudo
. – reinierpost – 2012-01-31T11:07:18.603
I don't see what you mean. 1) sudo
does not look like logging in as or switching to a user, su
does. The op wanted to log in as some user, not execute commands as it. 2) sudo
lets you execute commands as another user (see man sudo
if you don't believe me). In this case you would like to execute su
as root to avoid having to give a password for the user you switch into. 3) Different tools for different tasks, although I guess some people have higher tolerances than me for typing sudo -u postfix
before their actual commands. – Eroen – 2012-01-31T13:35:04.597
2
Allow PermitEmptyPasswords
in sshd_config
and restart sshd
.
2Why would that help? – reinierpost – 2012-01-31T11:04:01.260
do you want to login as that user, or do you want to be sure that no one else logs in as that user? – Baarn – 2012-01-29T17:45:58.013