SSH Access Denied

[akio63]

I have a MACBook Pro running 10.13.6 High Sierra. I am able to ping the laptop and initiate an SSH session. But when I enter the username root and password it tells me Access Denied. I can access the laptop locally using the same username root and password so I know that the password is not the issue. I have gone into System Preferences and enabled both Remote Login and Remote Management. But it still does not work. I have also enabled SSH from Terminal. I thought maybe I forgot so I ran the command one more time and it told me that the was already running.

I have tried using SecureCRT and I get Authentication Failed. Using PuTTY gives me the Access Denied error message.

Is root not allowed to SSH into the laptop? Is there something else I need to enable to allow access?

UPDATE: Let me add that the root shows up in System Preferences as System Administrator. I can see another user account that was used to setup the laptop originally. They are listed as Admin. However I cannot even click on that account. I can click on a Standard user and maneuver thru the tabs on that account. Am I not really an Admin when I login as root?

 

[techwarrior]

Generally, root login is permitted on the console only, not on remote sessions. But, if you connect using a regular user account (admin or standard user), then use su - root to switch to the root user, you should be successful.

The /etc/ssh/sshd_config file controls this. However, it is generally not good safety practice to enable remote root logins directly, thus by default it is restricted. If you edit this, I believe you will need to restart the sshd service.