SSH Password Login Enabler

One-click + interactive setup to enable SSH password authentication for a chosen Linux user (including root).

One-Click usage (recommended)

Paste this on the target server (while logged in with SSH key):

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Recoba86/ssh-password-login-enabler/main/one_click_setup.sh)"

What happens automatically:

• Downloads the main setup script from GitHub
• Asks whether server is Oracle Cloud and if Oracle iptables cleanup should run ([y/N])
• Asks for username (default: root)
• Asks for password + confirmation
• Applies SSH/cloud-init changes
• Validates sshd config
• Restarts SSH service
• Runs post-activation checks
• Asks whether to install fail2ban (optional, default is No)

Repository files

• one_click_setup.sh: bootstrap downloader/runner
• enable_ssh_password_login.sh: main configurator script

What the main script changes

• Prompts for target username and password
• Creates user optionally if missing
• Enables password auth directives:
  • PasswordAuthentication yes
  • KbdInteractiveAuthentication yes
  • ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes
  • UsePAM yes
• Enables PermitRootLogin yes when target user is root
• Adds Match User <user> block for explicit password auth
• Updates cloud-init entries when present:
  • ssh_pwauth: true
  • disable_root: false (for root target)
• Creates timestamped backups before changes
• By default does not modify firewall rules
• Optional Oracle mode can:
  • set iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
  • set iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
  • run iptables -F
  • purge netfilter-persistent (APT-based systems)
  • remove /etc/iptables
  • reboot the server at the end

Post-activation checks

After restart, script checks:

• Effective sshd settings (sshd -T -C ...)
• Password auth enabled
• Root login enabled (if target is root)
• Active SSH password login to 127.0.0.1 if sshpass is installed

If sshpass is not installed, config checks still run and the active login test is skipped.

Manual usage (without one-click)

sudo bash enable_ssh_password_login.sh

Security warning

Enabling SSH password login, especially for root, increases brute-force risk.

Recommended hardening:

• Strong password
• Optional fail2ban (installer now asks: [y/N], default No)
• Keep key-based SSH enabled as backup

Oracle Cloud option

At script start, it asks:

• Is this server on Oracle Cloud and do you want to remove local iptables firewall rules? [y/N]

If you answer y, Oracle firewall cleanup runs and server reboots after setup finishes.

Rollback

Backups are created automatically, for example:

• /etc/ssh/sshd_config.bak.YYYYmmdd-HHMMSS
• /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.bak.YYYYmmdd-HHMMSS

Rollback example:

sudo cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config.bak.YYYYmmdd-HHMMSS /etc/ssh/sshd_config
sudo systemctl restart sshd || sudo systemctl restart ssh