Question How To Set Up Plesk Root Login via SSH With External SSH Keys

[MHC_1]

Server operating system version

AlmaLinux 9

Plesk version and microupdate number

Plesk 18

How To Set Up Plesk Root Login via SSH, With External SSH Keys

I am having trouble establishing the method process to do this. There are numerous similar topics, and numerous topics that cover parts of this topic ( Resolved - What steps need to be taken to enable SSH root access through the SSH terminal extension? - for example using SSH keys for terminal access within Plesk framework ).


Situation:

- There is a Plesk server with account level SSH keys. These work fine.
- This server has SSH root level access from a few external sources - eg Filezilla or WinSCP
- This server needs these root accesses to be SSH keyed -- I would hope the local office machines keep the Private Key and only the public SSH Key is given to the Plesk server to check when logging in.
- We have

/etc/ssh/config_sshd

correctly set up with

PermitRootLogin prohibit-password

.

Question:

- Where on the file system do we put the SSH Root key and associate it with the root login referenced above?
- The keys will be generated off-server.

 

[MHC_1]

UPDATE: To clarify; I believe I need to stick the keys in /root/.ssh/<keyname> but I don't then know how to set these keys (or one of them) as the actual one to be required when SSH logs in.

 

[MHC_1]

SOLUTION:​

This is not a Plesk issue exactly, but the `authorized_keys` file needs to have the key encryption type set inside the file before the key hash value, separated by a whitespace .

WRONG:

ssh-rsa AAAAB3 ... obscured ... w+P1bZNsUU0Zw== plesk-ssh-terminal
AAAAB ... my obscured public key ... rM5sO9/8JgiEw== my-public-key

RIGHT:

ssh-rsa AAAAB3 ... obscured ... w+P1bZNsUU0Zw== plesk-ssh-terminal
ssh-rsa AAAAB ... my obscured public key ... rM5sO9/8JgiEw== my-public-key

This was the issue I was specifically having.