How to Enable Root Login in Ubuntu

By default, SSH on Ubuntu comes configured in a way that disables the root users log in. Uou can usually get around the need for root ssh login by using the sudo command. In some cases, though it’s just more convenient to get directly logged in as root.

How to Enable root login over SSH

• Login to your server with user root.
• Edit the sshd_config file found in /etc/ssh/sshd_config

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Add the following line to the file, you can add it anywhere.

PermitRootLogin yes

When using SSH Keys, you can set the PermitRootLogin value to `without-password` instead of Yes.

PermitRootLogin without-password

Disable login Using Password in Ubuntu

You should also disable password login.

PasswordAuthentication no

Save and exit the file (Ctrl + X select Y and Enter)

Restart the SSH Server

systemctl restart sshd

or

service sshd restart