How to ssh into ec2 instance running centos as a newly created user?

Question

I am able to ssh into an ec2 instance as the root user using the private key .pem that was generated when I created the instance.

$ ssh -i Desktop/key.pem [email protected]

I then created a new user

$ useradd dummy

When I run the following command to sign in as the dummy user

$ ssh -i Desktop/key.pem [email protected]

I get the following error

Permission denied

How do I ssh into the new instance as the dummy user?

Solution 1

As Roman points out, you need to copy the public part of your key (usually ending .pub) to this file: /home/dummy/.ssh/authorized_keys:

scp id_rsa.pub [email protected]:/home/dummy/.ssh/authorized_keys

Note, youll probably have to create the .ssh folder in /home/dummy first.

Then make sure the authorized_keys file has the correct permissions:

chmod 600 /home/dummy/.ssh/authorized_keys

Also, just to be safe, set the Selinux context too:

restorecon /home/dummy/.ssh/authorized_keys

Solution 2

You need to add your generated key to the newly created user's authorized_keys.

Comments

[user784637]

I am still getting the same error. I followed your instructions exactly. EDIT Setting the permissions to 700 on .ssh on the remote server resolved it.

[Wiesław Herr]

Had the exact same problem today, restorecon saved me. Thanks!