ssh password authentication for one user, public key for other user

Question

I know of the option

PasswordAuthentication yes

inside /etc/ssh/sshd_config . Is it possible to set this per user? My goal is to have one user with root privileges to only login with a public key, not through a password. And another user with lower privileges to login with a password, not requiring a public key.

Answer 1

sshd_config includes the option Match , which allows to start a conditional block

Match User user1
PasswordAuthentication yes
Match all
Other rules

You can add different conditional rules that way.
For instance, allow only user1, from a specific IP:

Match Address 192.168.1.20
AllowUsers user1

Once you have modified the sshd_config:

systemctl restart sshd
systemctl status sshd

And you can test your setup.