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This is a question regarding the OpenSSH client on Linux, MacOSX and FreeBSD.

Normally, I log into systems using my SSH key.

Occasionally, I want my SSH client to ignore my SSH key and use a password instead. If I 'ssh hostname', my client prompts me for the Passphrase to my SSH key which is an annoyance. Instead, I want the client to simply ignore my SSH key, so that the server will ask me for my password instead.

I tried the following, but I am still prompted for the passphrase to my SSH key. After this, I am prompted for my password.

ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=password host.example.org

I want to do this on the client side, without any modification of the remote host.

7ochem
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Stefan Lasiewski
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1 Answers1

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Try ssh -o PasswordAuthentication=yes -o PreferredAuthentications=keyboard-interactive,password -o PubkeyAuthentication=no host.example.org

In ssh v2, keyboard-interactive is another way to say "password". The -o PubkeyAuthentication=no option instructs the client not to attempt key pair authentication.

In addition, the PasswordAuthentication=yes option is to override any previously configured ssh options that may have disabled it.

Brian Minton
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Bill Weiss
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    And in fact 'ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=keyboard-interactive host' also works.

    I was thrown off by SSH_CONFIG(5), which still mentions the 'password' keyword.

    Thanks for the clarification.

     – Stefan Lasiewski Apr 07 '10 at 23:35
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    Correction: In SSH v2, both password and keyboard-interactive are valid, and they are different things. (password requires a password, and keyboard-interactive can technically be anything.) – u1686_grawity Apr 08 '10 at 12:17
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    Bill could you update your answer according to grawity's comment?

    Look at the output of these commands:

    lucian@XXX:~$ ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=keyboard-interactive -o PubkeyAuthentication=no host.example.org
Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-with-mic,password).

lucian@XXX:~$ ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=password -o PubkeyAuthentication=no host.example.org
lucian@host.example.org's password:
    – Lucian Adrian Grijincu Mar 15 '12 at 21:43
  • What does your server configuration look like? I've never seen that difference. As well, that wouldn't answer the original question, they were trying password. – Bill Weiss Mar 17 '12 at 12:00
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    If you want to add this switch to ssh's config file (~/.ssh/config) it's PubkeyAuthentication no in that file. – slm Aug 24 '12 at 16:17
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    ssh -o PubkeyAuthentication=no host.example.org worked for me, when ssh from debian to other debian. fyi – Sverre Oct 27 '14 at 07:05
  • Bingo, this works brilliantly – Daniel Mar 30 '16 at 05:06
  • I googled many phrases before I finally found this under ssh don't send key. Wow, this is hard to find. – bgStack15 Aug 31 '16 at 15:00
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    Doesn't work for me. I still get Permission denied (publickey). Looks like it's refusing to do anything else on the server end. – reinierpost Jul 27 '18 at 12:34
  • This works with ssh-copy-id as well, thanks for the answer! – Craig London Oct 08 '18 at 16:05
  • This works for scp as well – Silidrone Dec 26 '20 at 11:55
  • Works for me. Another solution is the option -o IdentitiesOnly=yes. – Daviz Apr 14 '21 at 09:25
  • Note to self - if you get intermittent key exchange failure, it's nothing to do with the key. The VM is out of memory and needs rebooting! – Sridhar Sarnobat Sep 09 '21 at 21:56