Headless SSH Login

How-to Questions
1

I have a headless system that I need to run System-Rescue on. I have downloaded the latest version, and I have used rufus to install it onto a thumb drive using the options suggested on your website. Testing the thumb drive works fine when I test it on my computer that has monitor and keyboard (normal console). But when I try to use it on the headless system (SSH) I run into a problem. SSH wants a password and will not take an empty password. So, I cannot login due to an unknown or unset password. I tried to use autorun to start a script that will set the password for me, but I cannot seem to get it to work. I created a file named autorun with the following content →

#!/bin/sh
echo “root:password” | chpasswd
/usr/sbin/sshd

So, off of the root I have a folder named autorun and in that folder, I have file also named autorun which contains the script above. But that doesn’t seem to work. I’m not sure what the problem might be. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you…

2

Shortly after I posted my previous message, I found this:

  • rootpass=password123: Sets the root password of the system running on the livecd to password123. That way you can connect from the network and ssh on the livecd and authenticate using this password. For security reasons it is recommended to use the alternative rootcryptpass option instead of rootpass so the password is not visible as clear text.

This did the trick, now I can login at the console and through SSH.

Thanks…