How can I deactivate the login password on my Raspberry Pi?

Question

I would to know how I can deactivate the login password on my Raspberry Pi? I need to login automatically after entering the following command on terminal:

ssh pi@<IP_address>

i.e., it should not ask for password to login.

Answer 1

It is NOT recommended to disable the SSH password if your device is going to publicly available - for example connected to the internet with SSH port forwarder.

To disable SSH login authentication you need to edit some files:

1. /etc/ssh/sshd_config
   • Edit that file
2. PasswordAuthentication yes - ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes - UsePAM yes
   • find those lines and make sure they are no and have no # in front.

Restart SSHD or the Pi

If you get a message

Permission denied (publickey)

then set these in sshd_config to no,

RSAAuthentication yes

PubkeyAuthentication yes

Restart SSHD or the Pi

TIPS

In sshd_config you can add. So it will only ask root for password,

Match User !root
    PasswordAuthentication no

And then you add a new user with limited permissions.Always log in as that user and when you need to do something as root you can just use sudo "command" - enter the root password and it will do it and come back to your low privilege user.

• To elevate into a root console from low privilege just type sudo enter your password. Once you are done type exit and you will drop back to the low privilege user.

• Did I already say that removing root user password and ssh key login is a very bad idea on a device that will be publicly available. Never do this on a public device!

• Here is a guide how to setup up private/public keys

Answer 2

Instead of not using passwords what you need is SSH keys: SSH with authentication key instead of password.

After configuring key authentication you can then remove the password from the local (client) key and ssh pi@rasp will just work. But only from a machine that has the key.