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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?

2 Answers 2

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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
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  • 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.
    – user784637
    Jul 8, 2013 at 21:12
  • Had the exact same problem today, restorecon saved me. Thanks! Jan 30, 2015 at 13:20
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You need to add your generated key to the newly created user's authorized_keys.

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