Subject: bug#26696: openssh: root 'without-password & password-authentication #f both breaks service

From: Leo Famulari <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 15:29:44 -0400

On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 09:52:12AM -0500, Christopher Allan Webber wrote:
> I wanted to permit root logins but only permit public key authentication
> in my openssh configuration.  This was my original assumption of how to
> do it:
> 
>   (service openssh-service-type
>           (openssh-configuration
>            (permit-root-login 'without-password)
>            (password-authentication? #f)))
> 
> However, for whatever reason, openssh fails to start with this
> combination.  However, it turns out this is redundant, since the
> configuration is already only permitting with public key authentication.

Do you still have the generated sshd_config files handy, so we can
compare them and figure out what's broken?