Lesson 4 (configuring ssh for new user)

tekv

Hello,

I'm working with an RHEL AWS EC2 instance. I created a user (user5) and having trouble configuring ssh with keys. I'm able to connect using password authentication.

When I try to log in, I get:
No supported authentication methods available (server sent: publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic)

I get the same message if I try to log in using localhost (user5@localhost)

I've searched online, but haven't found a solution that works.

Any guidance will be appreciated.

-Jerime

luisviveropena

Hi Jerime,

That's an AWS question. I used the default user account that's created with the VM, and the private key I created for the user. I didn't have any issues for connecting by ssh from my local system to the EC2 instance, so unfortunately I was unable to reproduce your issue.

Can you try with a local VM instead?

Regards,
Luis.

tekv

@luisviveropena
Hi Luis,
The default user works fine. I can try with a local VM, but most probably I'd be working with EC2 instances, so it would be nice to get it working. The AWS guides are pretty similar to the course instructions. Not sure if it's a RHEL thing (on AWS).

This is the reference I used for AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/new-user-accounts-linux-instance/

luisviveropena

Hi Jerime,

I reviewed the procedure and it's a bit long, perhaps you missed an item or get something wrong during the process.

I found this AWS documentation that points to your specific issue:

https://aws.amazon.com/es/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/linux-credentials-error/

So the AWS document it instructs to check on the username and also the private key.

Regards,
Luis.

tekv

Hi Luis,

Thank you for following up. I read through the article, but it doesn't address my issue. I get the same error even if I try "ssh user5@localhost". It seems to be related to how ec2 instances are configured. I spun up another EC2 instance with CentOS 7, and I get the same error with new users.

It works fine on my local VM with CentOS 7. I'll keep searching. I don't want to move on to the next lessons until I figure this out.

My next step is to look at the sshd_config.

-Jerime

tekv

Hi Luis,

I was able to solve the issue. It was related to a change I made to /etc/default/useradd. I have an EBS volume (/x) attached to my instance and wanted to make that the default home directory for new users.

The change in the useradd file worked, but it seems that sshd is looking for the authorized_keys files in the /home/user/.ssh/.. directory.

I changed the default home directory back to /home, created a new user, and ran through the ssh steps again. I was able to remote ssh.

I still get the same error when trying "ssh user7@localhost", but I'm not too concerned about that right now.

-Jerime

luisviveropena

Hi Jerime, I'm glad that you were able to solve the issue!

So it was related to the work you were doing on AWS.

Regards,
Luis.