How to disable SSH login for the root user

1. Create a new user. In the following example, we will name it bob.

root# useradd -m bob
root# id bob
uid=1000(bob) gid=1000(bob) groupes=1000(bob)

2. Set the password for the new user.

root# passwd bob
Changing password for user bob.
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

3. In order to add sudo permissions for the new user, add bob ALL=(ALL) ALL in /etc/sudoers or add bob in wheel group with usermod -a -G wheel bob.
4. Try to connect SSH with bob user.

ssh bob@localhost

5. Verify you can switch user to root with bob.

bob$ sudo -i

6. Disable root SSH login:

• Edit # vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
• and change #PermitRootLogin yes into PermitRootLogin no.

7. Now, we can restart SSH server.

root# systemctl restart sshd.service