Fixing cPanel SSH Permission Denied Error

You have a cPanel server and you're trying to access it via SSH. However, the SSH connection fails and you see the following error message:

Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic).

The solution is quite simple. Just log in to your WHM panel.

From the right-hand menu, go to Security Center and then click on SSH Password Authorization Tweak. You will see a screen like the one below:

Click the Enable Password Auth button and you should see something like this:

Password Auth has been enabled!
SSH Server...

Waiting for “sshd” to restart ………waiting for “sshd” to initialize ………finished.

Service Status

sshd (/usr/sbin/sshd) is running as root with PID XXXX (pidfile+/proc check method).

Startup Log
Starting sshd: [ OK ]
sshd restarted successfully.
...Done

Once you see this message, the issue should be resolved. Good luck!