Can't access droplet, lost key of root, now ssh-copy-id not working Permission denied (publickey)

Question

I have lost root passphrase of an ssh key now trying to set new key after changing root password from console

Also tried to copy in the console but it copy paste don’t work !!!

ssh-copy-id root@ipaddress /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: Source of key(s) to be installed: “/Users/jk/.ssh/id_rsa.pub”

/usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: attempting to log in with the new key(s), to filter out any that are already installed

/usr/bin/ssh-copy-id: INFO: 1 key(s) remain to be installed – if you are prompted now it is to install the new keys

permission denied (publickey).

Bobby · Accepted Answer

Hello, I would recommend following the steps from the official documentation on how to recover from Lost SSH Keys: https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/droplets/resources/lost-ssh-key/ Hope that this helps!Regards,Bobby

alexdo · Answer

Hello, all The Copy/Paste functionality of our web console is a bit odd; the code backing it is custom due to the way the VNC window is implemented for accessing your Droplet. It isn’t a good idea, in my experience, to rely on the console for long copy/pasting like an SSH key. My recommended method to get the key on the Droplet is over SSH itself. You can enable PasswordAuthentication for your Droplet by modifying your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file. Once set to Yes restart the SSH service and connect via an SSH client for a more stable connection. You can then modify your ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file to add the appropriate public key. This should do the job for you as well. The other option is to temporary enable the PasswordAuthentication from no to yes in order to access your droplet using password and then once you’ve entered your key to disable the PasswordAuthentication again. This way is considered more secure than uploading the key to a Dropbox in case you don’t have any other server to us. Login to the console on DigitalOcean website. Type sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config Change PasswordAuthentication from “no ” to “yes ” and save the file Open a terminal on your computer and type ssh username@[hostname or IP address] or if on a Windows box use PuTTY for password login making sure authentication parameters aren’t pointing to a private key Login with password Type sudo nano ~/.ssh/authorized_keys Paste public key text here and save the file Type sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config Change PasswordAuthentication from “yes ” to “no” and save the file Log out and attempt to log back in (if using PuTTY make sure you set up auth parameters to point to your private key) Hope that this helps!Regards,Alex

Become a contributor for community

DigitalOcean Documentation

Resources for startups and AI-native businesses

The developer cloud

Start building today

Report this

Can't access droplet, lost key of root, now ssh-copy-id not working Permission denied (publickey)

Related questions

DigitalOcean repository for MariaDB 10.3 is broken

How to upgrade the distribution used by my droplet?

I just used ssh to do-release-upgrade from ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04 and now site is down

Unable to Reset Root Password in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Need to install php.7.4 on Ubuntu 18. Can't get it in my list to update.

What is the best Linux (or at least ABI-compatible) OS distribution to use for building a custom image for small 1GB 1cpu VMs?

eth0 not getting configured correctly after upgrade.

Cannot upgrade mysql from 5.7 to 8 (Ubunto 18)

Hosting 3 Sites On the Same Droplet using subdomains

Permission Denied (Pubkey) whilst deploying Terragraph

Dashboard shows older version of Ubuntu after several upgrades.

Error during upgrade Ubuntu 18.04 to 22.04

Report this

Can't access droplet, lost key of root, now ssh-copy-id not working Permission denied (publickey)

Related questions

DigitalOcean repository for MariaDB 10.3 is broken

How to upgrade the distribution used by my droplet?

I just used ssh to do-release-upgrade from ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04 and now site is down

Unable to Reset Root Password in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Need to install php.7.4 on Ubuntu 18. Can't get it in my list to update.

What is the best Linux (or at least ABI-compatible) OS distribution to use for building a custom image for small 1GB 1cpu VMs?

eth0 not getting configured correctly after upgrade.

Cannot upgrade mysql from 5.7 to 8 (Ubunto 18)

Hosting 3 Sites On the Same Droplet using subdomains

Permission Denied (Pubkey) whilst deploying Terragraph

Dashboard shows older version of Ubuntu after several upgrades.

Error during upgrade Ubuntu 18.04 to 22.04